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President HENRY MORTON, I^li. D. 

Portrait presented to the Trustees and Faculty, by the Alumni Association ot the 

Stevens Institute ot Technology, February 15, 1892. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 



OF 



Prest Henry Morton, Ph. D. 



OF THE 



Stevens Institute of Technology. 



PREPARED BY 



Prof. Coleman Sellers, E. D., 



AND 



Prof. Albert R. Leeds, Ph. D., 

ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION TO THE TRUSTEES AND 

FACULTY, BY THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, OF A 

PORTRAIT OF PRESIDENT MORTON, 

FEBRUARY 15, 1892. 






I 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the y^ar 1892, by Henry Morton, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 






THE ENGINEERING PRESS, 
277 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 

'T^HE present volume seeks, in a modest way, a wider expression for that 
appreciation which broadens with the understanding and deepens with 
the course of time. Like other truths, a true appreciation seeks to link itself 
to the future and perpetuate through time the merits of worth. 

The suggestion that the Alumni of Stevens present to their Alma Mater 
a portrait of President Morton, in token of their esteem and appreciation of his 
many labors, met with the most hearty and ready response. The Committee 
who undertook the arrangement and execution of the suggestion found 
themselves enabled, through the liberality of the Alumni and the proffered aid 
of Professors Coleman Sellers and A. R. Leeds, to issue the following 
biographical sketch as a souvenir of the presentation. At the mid-winter 
meeting of the Alumni Association, held February 15, 1892, the portrait of 
President Morton was presented to the Trustees and Faculty of the Stevens 
Institute of Technology. Mr. E. B. Wall, the President of the Association, 
delivered the address of presentation, to which Professor Coleman Sellers 
responded, paying graceful tribute to President Morton, his valuable work 
and their long and unvaried friendship. 

A reproduction of the portrait is shown in the frontispiece ; it is a 
photo-engraving made directly from the original, which is a painting of half 
life-size, by Mr. A. D. Turner, of New York, an Artist selected bv President 
Morton. It represents its subject in a familiar attitude and place, and mav be 
well called a speaking likeness. 



iv PREFACE. 

The surroundings are appropriate and suggestive. To the right is seen 
the blackboard, on which so many diagrams have been sketched to aid in 
explanations ; to the left on the table stands the spectroscope with which 
were made the researches on the Fluorescent and Absorption Spectra of the 
Uranium salts, elsewhere referred to, and also the Induction Coil, used in 
other researches and for so many brilliant lecture illustrations. 

Below the table is the College Lantern, arranged by President Morton 
and for some time manufactured under his direct management. To the right 
and in the rear are seen the modification of Gassiott's ''Electric Star" and a 
Geissler tube of unusual dimensions, which also figured conspicuously at 
some of President Morton's public and class lectures, and behind the 
figure is the curtained window through which a porte-lumiere transmitted 
sunlight for his spectroscopic researches, and occasionally for lecture 
illustrations. 

In preparing the present volume the Committee have gladly availed 

themselves of a number of plates which were placed at their disposal by 

President Morton, who has for some time been having such pictures 

prepared and reproduced as "half tone'' plates, with a view to some 

future publication. 

ALFRED P. TRAUTWEIN, M. E., '76. 

WM. HEWITT, M. E., '74. 

ALFRED R. WOLFF, M. E., '76. 

GEO. M. BOND, M. E., '80. 

MAUNSEL WHITE, M. E., '7Q. 

C. J. FIELD, M. E., '86. 

ALEX. C. HUMPHREYS, M. E., '81. 



Table of Contents. 



PAGE. 



Introductory Remarks, . . . . . . 7 

John Morton, . . . . . . . .8 

Gen. Jacob Morton, ...... 9 

Rev. H. J. Morton, D. D., ...... 10 

Translation of the Rosetta Stone, . . . . . xi 

The " Rosetta Stone Report," . . . . ... 12-13 

Letter from Baron von Humboldt, . . . . . IJ. 

Law Student, . . . . . . , .15 

First Lectures, . . . . . . , 16-17 

Secretary of Franklin Institute, ...... 18 

First Academy of Music Lecture, ..... 19-32 

Fifth Academy of Music Lecture, . . . . . 33-37 

Monochromatic Light, ...... 36-37 

Lecture on Vision, . . . . . . . 38-44 

The Phantasmagoria, . . . ' . . . 41-42 

Lecture on Eclipses, ....... 44-48 

Legions of Angels, ...... 46 

Artificial Eclipse, . . . . . . . 47-48 

Lecture on Sunlight and Moonlight, .... 49-53 

The Phantom of the Mirror, - . . . . .49 

A Snow-storm in Mars, . ' . . . . 53 

Other Lectures, ........ 54-56 

Optical Projection of Solid Objects, . . . . 55-56 

Letter of Professor Tyndall, ...... 57 

Letter of Dr. O. W. Holmes, ..... 58-59 

Editor of Franklin Institute Journal, . . . . .60 

Eclipse Expedition, . . . . . . 61 

Cause of Bright Line, . . . . . -62 

Letters from Astronomer Royal, .... 63-64 

Letter from Warren De la Rue, . . . . . 65-68 

Paper on Giffard Injector, ...... 69-70 

The Stevens Institute of Technology, . . . . .71 

Resignation from Franklin Institute, .... 72 

Mr. Briggs' Resolution, ...... 73 

Organizing the Stevens Institute, .... 74 

Presentation of Workshop, . . . . . .75 

Address of Dr. R. W. Raymond, . ... 75 

Address of Horatio Allen, M. E., . . . . . 76 

Address of Coleman Sellers, E. D., . . . . 77-78 

Establishment of Electrical Department, .... 79-80 



VI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Endowment of Chair of Engineering Practice, 

Valedictory of Burton P. Hall, M. E., . 

Further Endowment of Chair of Engineering Practice, 

Made Member of Light House Board, .... 

Letter from Secretary of Treasury 
Hospitality, Article in "London Engineering," 
As an Expert in Patent Cases, ..... 

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES. 
Fluorescent and Absorption Spectra of the Uranium Salts, 

Of Pyrene, Chrysene and Thallene 
Remarkable Fluorescence of Thallene, . . . . 

Professor Tyndall's Surprise, .... 

Letter from Professor Stokes, . . . 

Letter from Professor H olden, ' . . . 

Apparatus for Optical Projection, . . 

Artificial Solar Flames, ..... 

Artificial Solar Eclipse, ..... 

Chromatrope for the Lantern, .... 
Reports to Light House Board, ..... 
Research on the Isomeric Purpurines, .... 

Letter from Wm. H. Perkin, F. R. S., 
Research on Elimination of Antimony, 
Measurement of Incandescent Electric Lamps, 
Various Papers and Articles, . . . . 

Range of Information, . . . . 

Religious Views, ...... 

Artistic Capacity. Professor Proctor's Lecture, " The Inferior Artist, 

Poetical Productions, ..... 



POEMS. 



Poetry of the Future, A Madrigal, 

A Word With Wings, 

A June Birthday, 

To Betty, 

A December Birthday, 

To Miss Newton 

A Silver Wedding,. 

A Golden Wedding, 

Burial of the American Flag, 

On the Death of a Dear Friend, 

A Christmas Ode, . 



PAGE. 

81 
82 
83 
83 

84-85 

86 

, 87-89 

90-95 

96-99 

100 

. 101 

102-3 

103-4 

105-6 

107 

108-9 

109 

110 

110-11 

111-12 

113 

113 

114 

116 

117 

118-19 

121 

122-3 
125 
126 
127 
128 
129 

130-1 
132 
133 

134-5 

136-8 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF 

President HENRY MORTON, Ph. D. 

TN the opening paragraph of the biography of Sir Humphrey 
Davy, his brother, Dr. John Davy, remarks that the most 
important part of the history of a man of science is necessarily 
recorded in his works. While this remark is eminently just, 
and a considerable part of these brief memoirs of the life of 
President Morton must necessarily be devoted to the giving 
of some account of his numerous and varied vv^orks of science 
proper, yet, at the same time, the especial interests which 
occupy our minds and hearts with delightful reminiscences 
at the present hour, require the consideration of many other 
works that in this connection are of no less value and 
importance. Not alone in pure science, but in science applied 
to the pressing needs of the present generation, and in science 
applied and incorporated as part and parcel, as web and woof, 
so to speak, of the substance and texture of a new species of 
education for young men, are his claims recorded to lasting 
remembrance and gratitude. 

President Henry Morton was born in the City of New 
York, on the i ith of December, 1830. His great-grandfather. 



8 GENERAL JACOB MORTON. 

John Morton, came to New York in the Commissary depart- 
ment of the Britisli Army prior to 1761, in which year he 
married a Miss Kemper, and soon after relinquished his 
position in the service and engaged in business, in which he 
soon acquired a large property. 

At the outbreak of the Revolution he owned and occupied 
a large brick house on Water Street, with a wharf and ware- 
houses in the rear, at which his ships unloaded; his business 
consisting in trade in flax, flax-seed and linens between 
Ireland and this country. 

At the commencement of the dispute between England 
and the Colonies, John Morton took the side of liberty, and 
when the occupation of New York by British troops was 
imminent, he converted as much of his property as possible 
into cash, which he deposited in the Loan Office (a sort of 
National Bank established by the United Colonies). 

The amount thus devoted to the use of the new Govern- 
ment, won for him among the British the name of the ''Rebel 
Banker." 

He removed his family and transportable effects to Bask- 
ing Ridge, N. J., near Morristown, where his house afforded a 
hospitable refuge to officers and soldiers of the Continental 
Army throughout the war. He died at that place before the 
evacuation of New York in 1783. 



REV. HENRY J. MORTON, D. D. 9 

After this time, his family returned to their house in 
New York, where his eldest son, General Jacob Morton, who 
had studied law with Judge Patterson at Raritan, practised 
his profession for about fifty years. 

He also held a commission in the State Militia ; was 
Clerk of the City Council for twenty-five years, and held at 
various times the offices of District Attorney, Alderman and 
Member of the State Legislature. He served as aid-marshal 
at the inauguration of Washington (1789) and was intimate 
with him, with Lafayette and with all the distinguished men 
of that time. 

Indeed, on all public occasions his house on the Battery 
was a centre of festivities, and no one of prominence visited 
New York without sharing his hospitalities. He died in 1836, 
leaving seven sons and one daughter. 

The youngest of these sons, Henry J. Morton, was edu- 
cated at Columbia College and the Theological Seminary, 
and in the year 1830 was ordained to the ministry of the 
Episcopal Church. 

In the same year he entered upon the duties of his pro- 
fession as Rector of St. James Church, Philadelphia, and 
remained at that post for fifty-six years until his resignation in 
1886, on account of failing sight and strength. He died 
November ist, 1890. 



10 STUDENT LIFE. 

As a young man he exhibited a remarkable talent in 
drawing and painting, and was the only member not a pro- 
fessional artist of the ''Sketch Club/' out of which developed 
the present "Century Club" and "Academy of Fine Arts." 
Though he never made fine art a subject of study, he con- 
tinued throughout life to exercise this talent as a recreation 
and for the pleasure of his friends, and has left hundreds of 
sketches and paintings which would do credit to any profes- 
sional artist. The plate facing this page is a reproduction of 
one of Dr. Morton's pencil designs. 

This brings us again to the subject of these notes, who 
is the son of the Rev. H.J. Morton, D. D., and in whom, it 
will appear, various hereditary traits developed, which make 
the foregoing memoranda specially interesting. 

At the age of seventeen, Mr. Henry Morton entered as 
Sophomore the University of Pennsylvania, graduating three 
years later in the class of 1857. During his college career 
he entered with keen interest into the literary and scientific 
diversions of the University, and found time also to sketch 
and paint in crayon and water colors. This latter diversion 
proved later on to be much more than a mere amusement, as 
will appear presently. The College Philosophical Society, of 
which he was a member, called the Philomathean, determined 
upon the adoption of a new badge and selected, from a number 



tH.^tf-^^ \,/<,i^^^ 





J 



ROSETTA STONE REPORT. 11 

of designs submitted, one made by Mr. Morton, which is 
still used by the Society and appears on the decorations of 
its meeting rooms and upon its publications. 

In i8=)6 there was presented to the same Society a plas- 
ter cast from an engraved stone tablet, discovered in Egypt 
(during the occupation of that country by the French under 
Napoleon) near the town of Rosetta in the Delta, and named 
from that place ''the Rosetta Stone." 

It contained inscriptions in three' texts : Greek, Demotic 
and Hieroglyphic, and was greatly valued as a probable key 
to the interpretation of the last named characters, with 
which the monuments of ancient Egypt are covered. 

It had already been studied by the great English scientist, 
Dr. Young, and by Champollion, the father of Hieroglyphic 
science, and by some others, but no thorough and complete 
translation of all its texts had ever been made. 

Such being the state of affliirs, a motion was offered, it 
must be admitted in a spirit of levity rather than with serious 
intent, by Mr. Morton, to the eftect "that a committee be 
appointed to translate the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, 
and present the translation to the Society at a future meeting." 

This motion having been carried, its proposer, with two 
colleagues, Messrs. Chas. R. Hale and S. H. Jones, was 
appointed to execute it. 



12 ROSETTA STONE REPORT. 

By one of those accidents which often decide important 
matters, at about the same time Mr. Morton's interest was 
excited in the subject of Hieroglyphic interpretation by reading 
a lecture on that subject, which had been delivered by the 
famous English Cardinal, Wiseman, at Rome, and this interest 
led him to follow up the matter of the Committee and turn a 
jest into earnest, by devoting a large part of his spare time 
during his junior and Senior years at the University, to the 
general study of Egyptian Hieroglyphics and to the special 
translation of the corresponding text on the Rosetta Stone. 
One of his colleagues, Mr. C. R. Hale (now Dean of Daven- 
, port, Iowa), at the same time worked out translations of the 
Greek and Demotic texts. When all was completed, Mr. 
Morton took the manuscript with him during his summer 
holiday in the country, and illuminated each page with an 
appropriate design in colors. 

The rather remarkable manuscript thus produced was 
duly presented to the Society and attracted considerable 
notice, especially from the Hon. Henry 0. Gilpin, a classical 
scholar of high attainments, who had held the office of U. S. 
Attorney-General, and who was emphatic in the opinion that 
this work should be reproduced in some adequate way. 
After much investigation it was found that the only feasible 
plan was to lithograph the entire work, and this could only be 



ROSETTA STONE REPORT. 13 

done within reasonable limits of cost, if Mr. Morton would 
undertake the drawing on stone of all his designs. 

He had no experience whatever in drawing on stone, but 
with the daring of youth and inexperience, he readily under- 
took this labor, and commencing work in July, i8s8, by 
Christmas of the same year had completed a book of 172 
pages, with upwards of 100 original designs and illustrations 
in color. 

The pages containing the minute (letter by letter) expla- 
nation of the Hieroglyphic text, and some others, did not 
have marginal space enough to admit of " illumination." 

Although the principal publishers of the country, to 
whom an opportunity to "handle" this work had been 
offered, declined with unanimity, it met with such popular 
favor, that, within two weeks of its issue the entire edition was 
exhausted, and it has since been numbered among the ''rare" 
or "scarce" books occasionally offered for sale when some 
great library is distributed. 

In a letter addressed by the famous Baron Alexander Von 
Humboldt to one of the Committee, this great scholar says : 

''The scientific analysis of the celebrated inscription of 
''Rosetta, which, despite the confusion of the Hieroglyphic 
''style, remains an historical monument of great importance, 
"has appeared to me especially worthy of praise, since it 



14 ROSETTA STONE REPORT. 

'' offers the first essay at independent investigation offered by 
"the literature of the New Continent. It is for this national 
"relation that 1 especially greet this independent work. 
" Little versed myself in this class of studies, I ought, however, 
'' to greet the so conscientious work of the learned Committee 
" of the Philomathean Society, since the results now obtained 
''contribute to prove the justice of the system of Champollion, 
"to which my brother, William Von Humboldt, was the first 
'' to render justice in Germany. 

''The picturesque ornaments added by Mr. Henry 
" Morton add to the interest inspired by a work well worthy 
" to be widely spread in your learned and free country." 

It may be of interest to mention that the original Rosetta 
Stone is a slab of black sienitic basalt, 3 feet i inch high, 2 
feet s inches wide, and of irregular thickness of from 6 to 12 
inches. Its level and polished face, 3 feet i inch by 2 feet 5 
inches, has on it 14 lines of Hieroglyphic, 32 lines of Demotic 
and ^4 lines of Greek writing. These texts alone, if sim- 
ply transcribed, would fill many pages of an ordinary book. 

The Hieroglyphic text, with its detailed explanation, 
occupies 41 pages of the printed report, which is a square 
octavo 7/^ by 8/^ inches. 

As this Rosetta Stone Report is now a very rare work 
and not easily accessible, reproductions in black and white 



Plate II. 



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Reduced copy of page oo of the " Rosetta Stone Report," being part of the explanation of the 

method ot Hieroglyphic interpretation. 



LAW STUDENT. 15 

from a couple of its pages have been made and will be found 
facing pages 14 and 16. In order to adapt them to an 
ordinary book page they have been reduced about 2% inches 
in height and \/i inches in width. 

Though Mr. Morton did not pursue his linguistic studies 
for any serious purpose in after life, he made occasional use 
of his classical knowledge in some humorous publications, 
such as an essay on the Antiquities of Bloomerism, full of 
quotations from Sophocles, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, 
Apollonius Rhodius, and Strabo, and a collection of humorous 
passages in prose and verse, including many gems from the 
Greek and Latin Anthology, entitled, ''The Misogonist's 
Dinner." 

In the interval, however, between the inception of this 
work and its final publication in i8sq, had occurred Mr. 
Morton's graduation, the valedictory being delivered by him 
in verse, and also his entrance as a student into the law oftlce 
of Mr. George M. Wharton, a well-known and successful 
advocate at the Philadelphia bar. 

But it was not in the profession of law, though his legal 
studies bore their fruit, in many cases, of very difficult and in- 
volved expert testimony in later life, that President Morton's 
sphere of labor was destined to be found, and in the year i8sq 
he relinquished it and devoted himself entirely to the study 



16 FIRST LECTURES. 

of chemistry and physics, which he had pursued as amuse- 
ments, together with carpentry and like mechanical work, 
since childhood. As in the lives of many other men of 
versatile ability, however, an apparent accident was the 
occasion of his entrance, after his previous essays, successful 
though they had been in the direction of law, art and 
literature, into his future career of rapidly widening fame and 
usefulness. 

It happened that the date referred to marked the begin- 
ning of a reaction in school and college, against the almost 
exclusive attention hitherto paid to Latin, Greek and kindred 
linguistic studies, and in favor of the recognition of the 
growing claims of Natural Science to a proper place in the 
curriculum. The Trustees of the Episcopal Academy of 
Philadelphia, one of the fitting-schools of the University, 
were solicitous to take part in this progressive movement 
but for a time were unsuccessful in finding an instructor 
capable of arousing an interest and holding the attention of 
the pupils. Always ready to enlist in undertakings looking to 
the diffusion of useful knowledge, Mr. Wharton^s law student 
volunteered to devote his leisure hours to giving some lectures 
on chemistry and physics that would be palatable and inter- 
esting to boys. A little room was fitted up in the Academy 
for his use, and a lecture table with pneumatic trough and 



Plate 




Reduced copy ot page 71 of the Rosetta Stone Report, being the title page ot tlie letter-bv-lettei 

translation of the Hieroglyphic text. 



FIRST LECTURES. 17 

other appliances, largely the work of his own hands, was 
speedily improvised. But a result quite unlooked for by the 
Trustees soon followed. The boys found the novel and 
brilliant experiments, the clear and entertaining explanations 
of the facts and phenomena of every-day life and experience, 
so much more interesting than the derivation of a Greek root 
or the history of Remus and Romulus, that the little room in 
the course of a few weeks became all too small for those who 
wanted to come in. The Trustees and the outside public also 
wanted to hear, and to accommodate them the Academy was 
enlarged in the following spring by the building of a wing 
with a large and admirably equipped lecture-room, devoted 
to the uses in lecture and research of Professor Morton, as the 
incumbent of a chair instituted expressly for him to fill. 

The new lecture-room speedily became famous, and in 
the afternoons, at extra lectures, was crowded with pupils 
from other city academies, and in the evening with older 
listeners who were glad to spend a delightful hour in hearing 
striking expositions of the novel discoveries in physical 
science. Engagements and professorships, much too numer- 
ous to fill, were offered to the lecturer. In the year 1863, '"^^ 
was elected Professor of Chemistry in the Philadelphia Dental 
College, and the year following was appointed Resident 
Secretary of the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania. 



18 ACADEMY OF MUSIC LECTURES. 

This latter appointment grew out of a growing apprecia- 
tion in the minds of scientists, engineers and manufacturers 
in Philadelphia (distinguished representatives of which classes 
in the community were to he found in the governing body of 
the Institute), of certain rare qualities of urbanity, tact and 
judgment exhibited by Professor Morton, and all of which 
qualities were now greatly needed in a new and critical period 
in the history of that institution. It had been originally 
founded to foster the growth of the Mechanic Arts in the 
State of Pennsylvania, but after many years of active useful- 
ness had at the date referred to lapsed into a decrepit state ; 
running in time-worn ruts, its library antiquated and little 
used, its lectures and weekly meetings sparsely attended. 
The winter following his appointment audiences thronged the 
freshly-equipped and decorated lecture-room, and the meet- 
ings were the occasion of interesting reports and discussions. 

In order to augment the usefulness and pecuniary re- 
sources of the Franklin Institute, and strengthened by the 
cordial assistance of its officers, Professor Morton delivered, 
at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in the month of 
April, 1865, the first of a series of lectures on Light, Sound 
and cognate topics, of which sixteen others were given in the 
same great auditorium during the course of the six following 
years. The history of these lectures is so well told in the 



ACADEMY OF MUSIC LECTURES. 19 

address made by Professor Coleman Sellers, E. D., on the 
occasion of the presentation of the portrait of President 
Morton (which led to the preparation of the present biograph- 
ical sketch), that we cannot do better than quote it in this 
place. 

''At one of the first meetings of the Managers of the 
Franklin Institute after Mr. Morton's appointment, it was 
suggested that an excellent means of interesting the public at 
large in the objects of the Institute 'would be a course of 
scientific lectures, delivered in some large hall. 

''One of the Managers was even so bold as to suggest 
the Opera House or Academy of Music, one of the largest 
auditoriums in the country, seatfng over ^,soo persons. Others 
considered this too venturesome, but it was finally decided 
to leave this to Mr. Morton's decision. 

"Deputed to communicate with Mr. Morton on this 
subject, I well remember the characteristic courage and en- 
thusiasm with which he at once seized on the idea of making 
the so-far unparalleled experiment of devising and executing 
illustrations on such a scale as should render them impressive 
on so large a stage and to so vast an audience. 

"All who came in contact with him were inspired with 
his confidence and enthusiasm (myself among the number), 
and the preparations were commenced at once. 



20 ACADEMY OF MUSIC LECTURES. 

" Some notices of these got abroad, and long before the 
date assigned for the lecture, every seat in the house was 
sold and so pressing was the demand, that the Academy was 
engaged for another evening, a few days later, and, before 
the night of the first delivery arrived, every seat had been 
again sold for the repetition. 

''There are occasions, even in the life of a scientific 
professor, which call for no small stock of moral courage, and 
the evening in which Mr. Morton for the first time walked 
forward upon a public stage in the face of an audience which 
crowded every seat and every inch of standing room, with 
the consciousness that he was committed to the absolute 
necessity of a success by the^arrangements for the repetition, 
was one of them. 

"\ was with him at the time, having undertaken the 
office of manager, to direct and superintend the work of his 
assistants behind the screen ; and 1 have not forgotten what 
were my own feelings. 

'' But when the curtain rose, he stepped forward with 
easy grace, amid the enthusiastic applause which greeted his 
appearance, and began his lecture as calmly and collectedly 
as if he had done the same thing fifty times before. 

" He told me afterwards that he was so anxious about 
the success of his experiments, that he had no room in his 



Plate IV. 




Portrait ot Professor Henry Morton. 
By A. D. Turner, from photograph taken in 1865, 



ACADEMY OF MUSIC LECTURES. 21 

mind for personal embarrassment, or the nervous agitation 
often caused by facing a great audience. 

''I need hardly say that the lecture throughout was a 
success. The clearness of the explanations and the novelty 
and beauty of the experiments held the audience in close 
attention for nearly two hours, and when Mr. Morton made 
his exit from the stage, amid applause even heartier than that 
which had welcomed him, he carried with him a reputation 
as a scientific lecturer which, 1 believe, has never been 
equalled. 

''During the following years similar lectures on related 
subjects were given by Mr. Morton in the same place. Some 
of their titles were the following : ' Reflection,' ' Refraction,' 
'Sunlight,' ' Moonlight,' ' Eclipses,' ' Fluorescence,' and so on. 

'' In these lectures Mr. Morton used not only numberless 
new devices for the production of striking illustrations of 
scientific phenomena, but also brought into play the appliances 
of the stage, such as shifting scenery to aid in color effects, 
stage traps to bring apparatus into position when wanted, 
and endless other applications. 

"In looking over some old papers a few days since, 1 
came across some interesting relics pertaining to these lectures 
in the shape of notes in Mr. Morton^s writing, which were for 
my use as 'stage directions' in the management of his 



23 LECTURES— STAGE DIRECTIONS. 

assistants and in securing the prompt and orderly succession 
of the experiments. 

''They form curious reading and well illustrate how com- 
plex were the combinations and how necessary were complete 
organization and co-ordinate action to the successful presen- 
tation of these experiments. One of these memoranda reads 
as follows : 

" 'Then when through Mclntyre will show diagram 6, 
Mr. Brown, Mr. Higby, etc., will then remove truck and 
lantern, while Mr. Sellers removes electric lamp to table and 
makes connections ready. Then Mr. Higby will run in the 
ANGEL, Mr. Sellers will light up electric lamp, Mr. Brown will 
light a red tire, and Mr. Stewart a piece of magnesium as also 
Klapp, Phillips, etc. 

'' 'Then Mr. Higby will run out the angel and Mclntyre 
will show diagrams 7 and 8, while Mr. Sellers removes the 
electric lamp and gets ready red and green fires. 

'''Show shadow of veil and needle. Send out lantern 
by Klapp and Phillips. 

"'Higby will then run in earth and work moon, then 
run off these and bring in movable flat. 

" 'Mr. Higby will then run in mountains on background 
and bank in front while Mr. S. sets the sun on floor in 
position for rising. Show Spectre of Brocken. During this 



LECTURES— STAGE DIRECTIONS. 23 

time Mr. S. will arrange the other electric lamp behind the 
MOUNTAINS for Hcxt experiment. 

'''Mr. Outerbridge will tell Mr. Higby to lower white 
curtain, raise horizon drop and run out mountains, and 
Mclntyre to show diagrams 3 and 4. 

" 'Experiments with electric light in the sun. Mr. S. on 
signal from Outerbridge will light up and have Combat of 
giant and dwarf. Klapp and Outerbridge. Rabbit on chair. 
Carry off men in hand, run about and step into ceiling, etc., 
etc., etc' 

" I also find among my notes the perorations or conclud- 
ing paragraphs of two of Mr. Morton's lectures, which are 
interesting as illustrating the poetical forms of expression 
which, judiciously introduced, added not a little to the charm 
of these discourses. The first was the conclusion to the 
lecture on 'Light,' in which the analogies, or rather close 
relations, between Sound and Light, had been dwelt upon 
and fully developed. It reads as follows : 

" ' From what has been seen this evening I hope that you 
will be able to attach a more definite meaning to that 
frequently used, though vague expression, ' Music of the 
Spheres'. 

"'There is such music. All day long from the glowing 
sun pours down an harmonious flood of commingled Might' 



24 LECTURES— PERORATIONS. 

notes, which are echoed, reflected and reverberated in a 
thousand accordant tones, from various natural objects. 
Then, when night comes upon the earth, the stars and planets 
from their far-off seats above the clouds, send down songs, 
f^iinter but not less sweet , like the voices of birds, singing as 
they float and circle amid the sky. And always and in all 
places amid the nearer planets, and amid the more distant 
stars, and throughout the vast abyss of the Universe, floats 
everywhere, floats eternally, that commingled symphony of 
luminous vibration, which constitutes the grand visible 
anthem of nature, the true 'Music of the Spheres'. 

''The other passage was the conclusion of a lecture on 
Color, in which the composition of sunlight and the charac- 
teristics of light from colored stars had been, among other 
things, fully explained. It runs as follows : 

" ' As a merely poetical, and not very strict analogy, we 
may regard this experiment as a spinning of colored light 
threads into a single white cord. From the lantern to the 
screen, run at first the seven colored threads, distinct and dis- 
tinguishable at every point — then we give motion to the 
painted glass, and twist these seven bands into a single 
compound fillet of white light. Carrying out this idea into 
our contemplation of the astronomical universe it naturally 
develops itself into a very beautiful thought.' 



ACADEMY OF MUSIC LECTURES. 35 



i i i 



We seem to see the countless stars, each throwing 
out a web of light rays ; some, like our sun, of woven white, 
others of every rainbow dye. Through this vast variegated 
web flash constantly the golden shuttles of the comets, 
weaving together, into compact perfection, the great and 
glorious Universe, the 'garment of God'." 

As lectures, such as were delivered by Professor Morton 
at the Academy of Music, have never been repeated since he 
retired from that held, it would seem worth while, in this 
place, to make some record of their characteristic features, 
which we will do by quoting from a few notices which 
appeared in the contemporary press. 

We should, in the first place, premise that the prime 
object of these lectures was to attract and interest the general 
public in scientific subjects, and that, with this object in view, 
Professor Morton made it his aim to develop experimental 
illustrations of the most striking and scenic character, utilizing 
for this purpose all the appliances of the scenery and stage 
mechanism which were at his command in such a place as 
the Academy or Opera House, and adding many devices 
of his own, especially constructed for the object in view. 
This being explained, the reports referred to will speak for 
themselves. 



26 PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF FIRST LECTURE. 



Preliminary notice of First Lecture at the Academy of Music. Report from 
''The Press," Philadelphia, Wednesday, April 26, 18650 



i c 



IN-DOOR RAINBOWS." 



''We were invited lately to attend some experiments 
with lime lights, and galvanic batteries producing the electric 
light, and were so much surprised and interested by the 
exhibition that we venture to give a brief history of our 
experience during the evening : 

''The experiments were made at the laboratory of the 
Episcopal Academy, 1314 Locust Street, by Mr. Morton, 
Lecturer on Natural Philosophy in that institution, who is, 
we hear, Professor of Chemistry in the Philadelphia Dental 
College, and also Secretary of the Franklin Institute. There 
was a goodly array of professional men assembled, and the 
lecturer proceeded to give a brief, but very clear and striking 
exposition of the theories of Light. He then proceeded to 
illustrate his various propositions with experiments of such 
singularity and beauty that we were quite taken by surprise. 

"The first exhibition was of the heating effect of the 
galvanic current when applied to a wire several feet in length, 
suspended between two upright metallic columns. In an 



PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF FIRST LECTURE. 27 

instant the arching wire blazed forth with brilliancy quite 
dazzling, and reminded one of Mahomet's bridge cast over 
the profound abysm of the nether world. The bridge burned 
like the bush of Moses, but, like it, was not consumed. The 
wire sufficed to conduct the current without being melted or 
dissipated. 

''The galvanic current was then caused to pass (by wires 
previously laid) to the rear of the room, where was arranged 
a large lantern, in the focus of whose lens the electric tluid 
was caused to pass between two carbon points, the image 
of these points and of the electric fire being projected on a 
vast screen at the opposite extremity of the audience chamber. 
The effect was magical. Two huge cones, like those of y^tna 
and Vesuvius, were seen approaching each other, blazing 
with intense light and heat. As they threatened each other 
in this antagonism, sheet-lightning seemed to play over their 
brilliant cones, throbbing and pulsating as when on summer 
nights the distant* horizon flickers with the Hash of storms 
too remote to send to us the sound of their tumult. Gradu- 
ally these cones would melt away, and then suddenly rush 
together with a clash and renewed fury of fire. We found, 
from the lecturer, that this motion of the cones or carbon 
points was effected by a self-adjusting apparatus familiar to 
scientific men as the 'Electric Lamp of Duboscq.' 



28 PRELIMINARY NOTICE OF FIRST LECTURE. 

''After these and other experiments with the galvanic 
battery, the lime light was introduced into the lantern. 

'Mn this case the light is produced by causing an ignited 
jet of mingled oxygen and hydrogen gases to impinge upon a 
plate of lime, which, becoming intensely heated, emits a 
white light of dazzling intensity. This apparatus was used 
to demonstrate various facts with regard to the composition 
of light, among other experiments for the production of an 
ARTIFICIAL RAINBOW. The gurgliug sound of the gas rushing 
through a vessel of water in one part of the apparatus, formed 
no inapt suggestion of falling showers and overflowing 
brooks, when suddenly there swept across the whole expanse 
of the screen, running out beyond it to the extreme corners 
of the lecture-room, a superb bow, exceeding in brilliancy of 
color all natural bows that we have ever seen in the sky. 
Indeed, the glow of color was so intense that it required the 
turning on of several gas-lights in the room to reduce it to 
the ordinary lustre of a natural rainbow. Nothing can be 
imagined more brilliantly successful than this display ; and the 
subsequent exhibitions of polarized light, beautiful as they 
were, seemed lost in the previous splendor of this wonderful 
production. 

''Our readers, we do not doubt, will be glad to know 
from the advertisement on another page, that these and other 



FIRST LECTURE AT ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 29 

experiments are to be exhibited to the public on next Tuesday 
evening, in the Academy of Music, where, among other re- 
markable features of the performance, a steam engine will be 
placed under the stage to work some of the apparatus used 
by the lecturer, thus supplying a power which will enable 
him to produce results never before reached on this side of 
the Atlantic." 



First Lecture at the Academy of Music. Report from the ''Philadelphia 

Ledger," May 3, 1865. 

"A MOST INTERESTING LECTURE." 

''Professor Henry Morton's lecture on 'Light,' deliv- 
ered last evening at the Academy of Music, was attended by 
one of the largest and most intelligent audiences ever as- 
sembled in the building. 

"It is next to impossible to give a report of the lecture, 
for the words of the speaker were illustrated by such frequent 
application of optical apparatus that mere words will fail to 
give any adequate idea of either its interest or instructiveness. 

"Mr. Morton commenced by showing the analogy be- 
tween light and sound, and in so doing used what might be 
called a 'Savarts' wheel for light. 



30 FIRST LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 

''This was a disk of soft iron revolved by a steam engine, 
placed for the purpose beneath the stage, at the rate of 6,000 
revolutions a minute. 

"A steel file being brought against the edge of this disk 
w^as rapidly cut through, while a jet of flower-like sparks 
was projected in a comet-like sheaf to a great height. 

"The production of lights of dazzling brilliancy by burn- 
ing magnesium, and by the calcium and the electric lights, 
followed; but the most beautiful experiment of all, in this 
division of the lecture, was the production of light by the 
passage of a galvanic current over a festoon of platinum, and 
in what is known as the electric lamp. 

" In the concluding part of the lecture, white light was 
analyzed into its constituent colors by breaking a large arch 
of white light by means of a prism, and thus forming a beau- 
tiful artificial rainbow. 

''This having been done, Professor Morton then re-com- 
posed white light from colored lights, demonstrating by a 
variety of elegant experiments one of the most difficult dicta 
of the science of optics. 

"The style of the lecturer is clear and somewhat conver- 
sational. His articulation is so distinct that he made himself 
heard with ease, although he did not appear to raise his 
voice. Everything was made so plain that we feel free to 



FIRST LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 31 

say that very few audiences ever assembled in the Academy 
have been at the same time so w^ell entertained and so 
thoroughly instructed. Many of the demonstrations were 
heartily applauded. 

"The lecture was announced to be repeated at the same 
place next Tuesday evening." 



First Lecture at the Academy of Music. Report from the ' ' Philadelphia 

Evening Bulletin," May 3, 1865. 



<' D 



PROFESSOR MORTON'S LECTURE." 

''To see the Academy of Music crowded with a most 
intelligent audience, on the occasion of a purely scientitk 
lecture on the somewhat difficult subject of 'Light/ is a 
novelty indeed. The entertainment of last evening forms a 
marked era in the history of the progress of science in our 
community, and the enterprise of the Franklin Institute in 
enabling Professor Morton to demonstrate his subject with a 
series of beautiful experiments, upon a scale of liberal expend- 
iture hitherto quite unknown in this part of the world, is 
worthy of all praise. We shall not attempt to follow the 
lecturer through his remarks, which were delivered with the 
easy grace of a perfect master of his profession, and in terms 



32 FiRST LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 

SLiftkiently simple and untechnical to come within the com- 
prehension of the least informed of his audience. 

''The experiments in mechanical, chemical and electric 
light, were of a brilliant and interesting character, the whole 
apparatus being of the most perfect and elaborate construc- 
tion. Frequent bursts of applause testified the delight of the 
audience as one startling effect after another was produced, 
and the announcement at the close of the lecture that it 
would be repeated on Tuesday next was received with the 
most unmistakable pleasure. 

" We would venture to suggest that, if consistent with 
the success of the experiments, the drop curtain be raised 
higher and the screen brought a little nearer the front of the 
stage, as the spectators at the extreme sides of the stage had 
some difficulty in seeing all the experiments. A word of 
commendation is due to the efficient corps of assistants, to 
whose activity and intelligence we were indebted, in great 
measure, for the absence of all delays in the progress of this 
delightful entertainment. We recommend those of our 
readers who missed its enjoyment last night, to avail them- 
selves of the opportunity ottered by its repetition next 
week." 



FIFTH LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 33 



Fifth Lecture at the Academy of Music. Report in the ''New York Herald." 

May 27, 1868. 

"LECTURE ON LIGHT." 

''An interesting lecture on 'Light,' illustrated with vari- 
ous new and remarkable experiments, was delivered by Pro- 
fessor Henry Morton at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia 
on last Saturday evening. 

"The lecturer is by birth and descent a New Yorker, 
grandson of General Morton, so well and favorably known 
among the Knickerbockers of a former generation, and now 
holds the positions of Resident Secretary of the Franklin Insti- 
tute and editor of their journal, while at the same time occu- 
pying the Chair of Chemistry and Physics in the University 
of Pennsylvania, an institution corresponding in its antiquity 
and character with our own Columbia College. 

"This lecture is the fifth which has been delivered by 
Professor Morton in the same place, and had for its special 
subject, 'Sunlight.' Notwithstanding the stormy character 
of the night, the house was densely crowded both in seats 
and standing room; all seats had been sold several days be- 
fore the lecture. 



34 FIFTH LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 

''To give even an outline of the subject as developed by 
the lecturer during the two hours for which he riveted the at- 
tention of his audience would require f^ir too much space; 
suffice it to say that the nature of the sun, the source of his 
heat, and the properties of his light, were most fluently and 
clearly explained, the various points being illustrated by a 
series of pictures projected with wonderful brilliancy on an 
immense screen, forty feet square, covering the front of the 
stage. The thing that most impressed the audience was the 
number, beauty, success, and promptitude of the numerous 
experimental illustrations introduced throughout the lecture. 
An able corps of assistants, under the direction of Mr. Cole- 
man Sellers, Vice-President of the Franklin Institute, an emi- 
nent American mechanical engineer, and famous both in this 
country and Europe for his inventions and productions as an 
amateur photographer, placed at the lecturer's hand, or oper- 
ated at his signal, everything at the moment it was required. 

''The lecturer placed himself and apparatus on a plat- 
form secured to one of the stage traps, and then was raised 
to a great height above the floor, at which elevation he 
burned, in the compound blow-pipe, a sword from point to 
hilt. The fountain of scintillating sparks and drops of melted 
steel which, descending in a broad sheet some fifteen feet in 
height, poured upon the stage and rolled in a torrent of fiery 



Plate V. 




Burning of a Sword. 



FIFTH LECTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 35 

hail towards the footlights, was a sight never to be forgotten. 
A wheel five feet in diameter, supporting electric tubes, was 
rotated, while flashes of electric fire from the largest induction 
coil in the world, belonging to the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, were passed through, producing a dazzling star of 
constantly changing colored rays. 

''The drop curtain, descending for a few moments, 
rose again, displaying a brilliant palace scene, illuminated 
by numerous lime lights judiciously placed. There then 
marched in a great number of masked figures, in costumes 
representing the colors of the rainbow, and bearing banners 
with brilliant devices. These, taking positions, formed a 
tableau equal in brilliancy and beauty of general effect to 
anything we have ever seen upon the stage. At a signal 
the white light was extinguished, and its place supplied 
by pure yellow light, equally bright, when every trace 
of color disappeared, and the entire phalanx became a 
ghastly company of spectres bearing banners of white and 
black. The means for producing this yellow light is a 
device of Professor Morton's, entirely new, and emi- 
nently efficient ; in fact, the entire house was illuminated 
with it from the stage, so that the same wonderful 
change was manifest in the faces and costumes of the 
audience. 



36 APPARATUS FOR MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT. 

'^ These are but a few of the experiments shown, and 
repeated and enthusiastic applause testified the natural de- 
light of the audience." 

The Plate facingthis page represents the final experiment 
of the lecture above described. It is reproduced from a re- 
cently executed painting by Mr. Hughson Hawley, of New 
York, the details of the interior of the Academy of Music 
being supplied to this artist by a drawing of this interior 
made in 1876 by Mr. Frank Schell. 

The apparatus by which the flood of monochromatic 
light required for this experiment was produced, is, perhaps, 
worthy of a brief description. 

It consisted of a group of Bunsen burners, twenty-five in 
number, with a common gas supply in the shape of a gridiron 
of iron tubes on which the ''burner" tubes rested. Each 
of these tubes was 18 inches high, and ^-inch internal 
diameter. 

The lower part of this entire system of burners was in- 
closed in a wooden box with a single large opening in one 
side, so that all the burners drew their air supply from this 
box, and consequently through this opening. 

Opposite to this opening was placed a steam atomizer, 
arranged to throw a jet of salt water spray into the box, 
where, mingling with the air that supplied the burners, it 



Plate VI. 




Experiment with Monociiromatic Light at the Acadeniy ot Music, 



APPARATUS FOR MONOCHROMATIC LIGHT. 



37 



caused them to give out a strong and purely monochromatic 

yellow light. 

In using this apparatus, the steam atomizer was put in 
operation before the yellow light was desired, but the cup 
containing the salt water was not raised high enough to feed 
into the jet. When the yellow light was wanted, this 
cup was simply 
raised an inch, 
and in a moment 
the pale blue, 
non-luminous 
flames of the 
burners were 
converted into 
sources of in- 
tense yellow 
light. 

A single one of these groups of burners emitted sufficient 
light to illuminate a large building, but on the occasion of the 
lecture described two were used at the front of the stage, with 
four smaller ones, of five burners each, towards the rear. These 
are described and figured in Dr. H. Schellen's work, '' Die Spec- 
trumanalyse," and in the English translation of the same, en- 
titled '' Spectrum Analysis, "edited by Dr. Huggins, F. R. S.,etc. 




38 ACADEMY LECTURE ON "VISION." 



Lecture on "Vision."' Report in "New York Herald," June 2, 1869. 

"VISION." 

" Lecture in Philadelphia Last Night by Professor Henry Morton. 

''The 'Herald' published last year, about this time, a 
report, which was quoted in many of our own and several 
English journals, of a lecture on 'Sunlight,' delivered by Pro- 
fessor Henry Morton, Resident Secretary of the Franklin In- 
stitute, before that body at the Academy of Music in Phila- 
delphia. Another lecture, by the same gentleman, and under 
the same conditions of place and circumstance, but on the 
subject of 'Vision,' was delivered last evening, and, like the 
former one, was illustrated with experiments of unusual in- 
terest and impressiveness. 

"Professor Morton, though a young man, already holds 
a high place among our men of science on account of several 
successful and ingenious investigations which he has carried 
out, and is, moreover, one of our most successful lecturers, 
combining a thorough knowledge of his subject with a happy 
facility of conveying information to his hearers, and a marked 
ingenuity in the arrangement and execution of experiments, 
which at once illustrate his explanations and secure the in- 
terest of his hearers. 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "VISION." 39 

''At a few minutes after eight o'clock, the house being 
densely crowded as on former occasions, the curtain rose, 
and the Professor stepped forward and began his lecture with 
an easy and graceful delivery, speaking without notes and 
also without mannerism. He explained the structure of the 
human eye, or organ of vision, in its twofold character of an 
optical instrument, collecting and arranging light rays like an 
ordinary glass lens, and of a sensitive nerve screen, receiving 
and appreciating in many various ways the rays falling upon it. 
To illustrate tne inversion of the image caused by the ordinary 
lens, a little aquarium was placed behind a lens and illuminated 
by a powerful lime light, so that a vast image of the aquarium 
and its inmates was projected on the screen, which covered 
the front of the stage for a space forty feet square. There 
then appeared, as it were, a section of the ocean, with whales, 
sea serpents, and crocodiles, from thirty to fifty feet in length, 
swimming about on their backs, while the surface of the water, 
clearly defined, was below, and a fresh quantity poured in was 
seen to stream upwards from beneath. The vast apparent 
magnitude of these creatures, and their strange motions, ren- 
dered the scene remarkable and amusing in the extreme, as 
was testified by the repeated applause of the audience, who 
insisted upon having the aquarium returned to the lantern 
after it had been removed by the assistants. 



40 ACADEMY LECTURE ON ''VISION." 

''The reason that this inversion did not affect our sense of 
vision was then explained, on the ground that the nerves of 
the retina took cognizance of the direction of the impinging 
rays, and that this body was in fact the seat of vision, the 
standpoint from which the observation was made, and not 
a mere screen on which an image was projected and then 
studied by other means. 

''The sensitiveness of the eye to faint impressions of 
light was then discussed, and in connection with this subject 
was explained the method of Lockyer and janssen, by which 
the solar clouds or flames, heretofore seen during a total 
eclipse only, could now be viewed at all times. This part of 
the subject was illustrated by drawings and photographs of 
total eclipses, taken in i860 by De la Rue, and last year by 
Dr. Vogel, projected on the screen. The lantern is now 
frequently used for such purposes ; but we have never seen 
pictures projected of such vast size, and with such great 
brightness, as were those used throughout this lecture. 

"The method by which the eye judges as to the dis- 
tance of objects was then explained, and the very limited 
range of its capacity in this respect was illustrated by the 
phantasmagoria, in which images always in the same place 
appear to approach and recede by a mere change in mag- 
nitude. This arrangement has been exhibited before, but 



> 




to 



on 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "VISION." 41 

never, we imagine, on so grand a scale or with such remark- 
able success. The entire space of the stage seemed to be 
occupied by a vast tunnel, from the far depths of which 
a locomotive advanced with steady rush, towering up to 
gigantic size, until, when some 25 feet high, and about 
to plunge into the orchestra, a whistle sounded, and tun- 
nel, locomotive, and all, melted away into an ocean grotto 
of the sea nymphs.* From the depths of a vast cavern 
advanced a grisly skeleton, who, just when he seemed ready 
to crush the adjacent spectators by his next footfall, waved 

*THE PHANTASMAGORIA. — These phantasmagoria experiments were 
arranged by having a large magic lantern on an elevated structure at the 
extreme rear of the stage (which was 60 feet deep), and, with this, throwing 
large pictures, as of the tunnel, grotto, etc., so as to cover the 40-foot 
screen at the front of the stage. 

On a truck or carriage running at right angles to the screen — that is, 
back and forth on the stage — were mounted two magic lanterns, with the 
gas bags, etc., required for their calcium lights. Each of these lanterns 
was provided with a mechanism by which the adjustment of the lens, 
securing a sharp image at various distances, caused the opening or closing 
of a diaphragm which controlled the amount of light passing from the 
lens to the screen. By this means an uniformity of illumination was 
secured during the change in size of the image. 

Thus, in the tunnel experiment, the view of the interior of the tunnel 
was thrown on the screen by the large fixed lantern. Then, the lanterns 
on the truck being close to the screen, a small image of a locomotive, seen 
from in front, was also thrown on the screen so as to occupy the far-off 
end of the tunnel. 



42 ACADEMY LECTURE ON " VISION." 

his arms, nodded, and, turning round, sped back into his 
dreary tomb. Angels flying forward from a cluster of stars, 
statues advancing and retreating through vast vistas of col- 
onnades and galleries, and vast colored balls that rolled and 
unrolled their intricate convolutions, further illustrated the 
same points. 

''There was next introduced, in further demonstration, 
the 'shadow pantomime,' which would require more space 
than is allowed in this report to describe, but which we can 
honestly say fully deserved the enthusiastic applause which 
it received, and the actual shouts of laughter which it 
elicited. 

The truck was then slowly rolled back on the stage, an assistant stand- 
ing on the truck keeping the focus right by means of the rack and pinion 
on the lens, as the image grew larger in consequence of the increasing 
distance of the lantern from the screen. This adjustment of the focus 
automatically opened the diaphragm, so that as the image grew larger more 
light passed out to illuminate it. 

When the two lanterns on the truck had reached the most distant part 
of their m.ovement, the image of the locomotive was so expanded as to 
occupy the entire screen, and at this moment the "dissolving stopcock" 
was turned so as to change the light from one lantern to the other, and 
thus slowly change the locomotive into a nymph. 

At the same time that this was being done, a picture of the interior 
of a grotto was substituted for the tunnel in the large lantern, unnoticed by 
any one in the confused effect produced by the melting of the other images, 
one into the other, and thus, when the sea nymph was fully defined, she 
was seen to be seated, not in a tunnel, but in a grotto festooned with sea 
weeds and strewn with shells. 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "VISION/' 43 

''One of the happiest hits was the hatching of eggs by 
gunpowder, and the vast and rapid growth of the extraor- 
dinary fowls produced. The lecturer asked the indulgence of 
his audience for any compromise of scientific solemnity and 
formal precedent which this illustration might involve, and 
we feel sure that none present but might congratulate them- 
selves on his venturing from the beaten path in this particu- 
lar. We, for our part, shall never forget the at once astonish- 
ing and ludicrous effects produced, nor the principles which 
they illustrate. The immense size of the stage in this build- 
ing offered for such arrangements unparalleled advantages. 

''The subject of persistence of vision was then first 
illustrated, by large disks six feet in diameter, with devices 
of balls, rings, etc., painted upon them and rotated, while 
they were illuminated by rapidly recurring flashes of light. 

"All the effect of the best zoetrope was thus displayed 
to the immense audience with far greater clearness than in 
the ordinary instrument, for there was no seeming interrup- 
tion to the view. The great disks stood directly before the 
house, and were directly viewed with no intervening object. 
The same subject was also illustrated by several electric 
wheels, which were decidedly the most beautiful things we 
had ever seen. One appeared to be a great star, flashing 
countless and ever changing colored rays ; another was an 



44 



ACADHMY LECTURE ON " ECLIPSES." 



immense wreath of scintillating, luminous jewels. No words 
can convey an idea of the beauty of these things, for nothing 
that one has seen makes any approach to them in their curi- 
ous combinations, indicated, not expressed, by the words 
luminous jewels. 

''The phenomenon of subjective colors was then illus- 
trated by an arrangement in which one and the same light 
was made to appear of every color, while actually un- 
changed. This subject concluded the lecture, which may 
be reckoned a thorough success, reflecting great credit on 
all concerned." 



1 



Lecture on "Eclipses." Reported in the "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin," 

March i, 1870. 



a 



PROFESSOR MORTON'S LECTURE." 



''Notwithstanding the unfavorable state of the weather, 
the audience assembled at the Academy of Music last even- 
ing, to hear Professor Morton's lecture on the Eclipse, was 
as large a one as we ever saw there assembled on a like occa- 
sion. Not only were all seats filled, but the steps of the 
aisles were likewise tenanted, as also the standing places 
around the walls. 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "ECLIPSES." 45 

''The lecturer opened his discourse by reference to the 
enlargement of knowledge, which had deprived the grand 
and impressive phenomena of eclipses of all superstitious ter- 
rors, and taught us to recognize in them, as in all the 
phenomena of nature, great and small, the operations of a 
divine and beneficent intelligence and ruling power. He 
then proceeded to illustrate the facts and conditions from 
which an eclipse was the consequence, explaining these 
first by aid of an orrery, in which the place of the sun 
was supplied by a globe containing a zirconia burner, with 
twelve double gas jets and as many pencils of this rare 
substance, and then with a few excellent diagrams. 

''After thus illustrating what might be called the astro- 
nomical relation of eclipses, he next noticed their purely 
optical conditions, such as the cause of the umbra and pe- 
numbra, or full and partial shadows. In illustration of these 
points two very beautiful experiments were employed: in the 
first place, three colored lights of various tints being thrown 
on the screen, three gigantic colored shadows were projected 
by a person, atlas-like, supporting a globe. By different 
movements of this figure and his shadows the various con- 
ditions of shade and shadow were clearly illustrated. Then 
the non-interference and rectilinear directions of light rays 
were further demonstrated by the 'ascent of the sun spirits.' 



46 ACADEMY LECTURE ON "ECLIPSES." 

In this case, by means of a silhouette, representing a floating 
figure, placed midway in the stage, and many lights burned 
behind it, a host of luminous, spirit-like figures were pro- 
jected on the screen, and, by motion of the lights, were made 
to float off, rank after rank, into the sky.* 

" Passing next to the actual appearance of an eclipse, an 
illustration was shown whereby all the characteristic actions 
and changes of a total eclipse of the sun were artificially 

* LEGIONS OF ANGELS. — This is an experiment of singular beauty in 
its effect, and yet of simple execution where the appliances of a deep theat- 
rical stage are available. 

A figure, representing a floating winged angel or spirit, is cut out of 
cardboard or very thick paper as a silhouette, like those used sometimes for 
lamp shades, but quite large, say five or six feet high. This is supported in 
a frame, and so connected with stage scenery that it shall be the only open- 
ing in an otherwise opaque partition crossing the stage about midway of its 
depth. 

At the very rear of the stage a platform should be arranged at a consid- 
erable height, on which several assistants can stand, each one of whom shall 
hold and burn a piece of magnesium wire or ribbon in such a way that, from 

time to time, drops of the blazing metal shall be let fall. 

The rays of light from each source will pass through the silhouette and 
project its luminous image on a different part of the wet muslin screen at the 
front of the stage, thus producing as many " spirits " as there are sources of 
light, and if these are numerous there will seem to be a phalanx of luminous 
phantoms across the entire stage. As each burning drop of magnesium 
falls it will produce an additional image, which will shoot upward into the 
ceiling. 

This creation and upward flight of luminous phantoms produce an 
effect whose beauty it is impossible to adequately describe. 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "ECLIPSES." 47 

reproduced. The bright solar disk was first seen with the 
sun spots upon it as observed and recorded photographically 
during the eclipse of last August. Then the moon, with its 
rugged edge, as shown also in the photographs, crept slowly 
over, cutting down the solar disk to a crescent of ever nar- 
rower dimensions ; then came the broken line of light known 
as Bailly's beads ; and lastly, at the instant of totality, or 
when the last direct sun ray was cut off, came with the sud- 
denness which all observers have noticed, the glories of the 
corona and prominences. 

' ' To those who, like ourselves, had the pleasure of a pre- 
liminary inspection of the stage and its arrangements, this 
experiment was no less remarkable for its beauty than for the 
ingenious mechanism by which it was operated.* 

* ARTIFICIAL ECLIPSE. — The apparatus by which this effect was pro- 
duced may be described as follows : On a plate of glass in a frame, large 
enough to cover the ''field" or "condenser" of a magic lantern, is painted 
the representation of the sun, surrounded by the solar prominences and the 
corona, as seen in a total eclipse, except that the sun's disk is to be bright, 
with sun spots or other features clearly indicated. A little in front of this 
are arranged two doors, which, when closed, cover everything but the 
solar disk. These doors are connected with strong springs which tend to 
throw them open, but are held shut by a catch easily tripped. 

Between the glass picture and the doors, slides a long plate of perfectly 
clear glass, carrying at its centre an opaque disk, with slightly serrated 
edge, representing the moon and a little larger than the opening between 
the doors, which last represents the circumference of the solar disk. 



48 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON " ECLIPSES." 



'' Photographs, obtained at the late eclipse and on prev- 
ious occasions, were then shown and explained, and the char- 
acter of the solar prominences and the corona discussed, the 
former being illustrated by some experiments with colored 
liquids, and the latter by a splendid display of electric dis- 
charges in exhausted tubes. Among these was especially to 
be noted a phosphorescent garland of blue, green and purple 
light, which continued to glow for some minutes after the 
electric discharge had ceased. This tube, the Professor stated, 
he had carried on from New York in his own hands, to secure 

The doors being shut, and the movable glass slide drawn to one side 
until the opaque disk is beyond the opening of the doors, the apparatus is 
placed in the lantern, when we 
see a luminous disk with sun 
spots alone, on the screen. 

The glass slide being then 
slowly pushed forward, the 
dark disk of the moon is seen 
to invade the bright disk of 
the sun, and little by little to 
cover it. 

Just before the bright disk 
is completely covered, the phe- 
nomenon known as " Bailly's beads" will be represented by the spots made 
by the light which gets through the serrations on the edge of the lunar disk. 

An instant after the totality is complete, the moon's disk entirely covers 
the sun and at the same moment the "solar prominences" and ''corona" 
flash out, because the front edge of the moving glass slide has touched a 
rod, which liberates the catch and allows the doors to spring open. 








bJD 






O 



u 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT." 49 

its safe transportation in this last but otherwise most perilous 
stage in its voyage from Europe ; and we think its beauty, as 
exhibited last night, must have repaid him for his trouble." 



Lecture on " Sunlight and Moonlight." Report in "The Philadelphia Pho- 
tographer," 1868, Vol. v., p. 231. 

"SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT." 

'Trofessor Morton has on many previous occasions lec- 
tured on the subject of light, with equal success and popu- 
larity. Several of his previous lectures, like the last, have 
been repeated, because even this huge building failed to ac- 
commodate his audience ; he, therefore, in the present in- 
stance, assuming that his hearers 'were acquainted with the 
general laws governing the emission and reflection of light, 
proceeded to explain the difference between regular and dif- 
fused reflection, illustrating this point by an original and singu- 
larly pleasing experiment. A large mirror was set midway in 
the stage, facing the audience, who could see themselves re- 
flected on its ample surface. Over this mirror an assistant, 
at a signal, let fall a delicate white veil, when at once there ap- 
peared, as if just within the surf^ice of the glass, a phantom- 
like figure, which was then seemingly wrapped up in the veil 
as that was rolled together, and appeared to fall with the falling 



50 ACADEMY LECTURE ON "SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT." 

tissue as it was dropped to the floor. The appearance of this 
experiment was most beautiful, and excited much attention. 
The lecturer then explained the method of its arrangement, in 
which a lantern, with a glass photographic picture placed at 
one side, and throwing an image obliquely on the mirror, 
played, of course, an important part. 

''Various illustrations projected on the screen, from pho- 
tographs of statues with mirrors, and landscapes with still 
water reflecting the adjacent objects, were then used. 

''To give such things due effect in such a building is no 
easy task. The front of the stage is 50 feet in width, and 
the most distant of the audience more than 100 feet from that 
point. An immense screen and powerful illumination are 
therefore necessary. The screen employed was of wet mus- 
lin, 40 feet square, lowered into its place at the moment 
when required. To cover and illuminate brilliantly such a 
surface (1,600 square feet), no ordinary lantern would suffice, 
and, accordingly. Professor Morton has had one constructed by 
Mr. Zentmayer, with condensers eight inches in diameter, and 
of 3-inch focus, with which pictures of corresponding size are 
used. Thus an objective of low power may be employed 
and loss of light avoided, as also a large ignited siufoce of 
lime utilized without injury, on account of the corresponding 
increase of size in all parts. 



ACADEMY LECTURE ON "SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT." 51 

'' After the illustrations of reflection above mentioned, came 
a series of moon photographs, intermixed with copies of lunar 
maps and a number of admirable imaginary views of lunar 
scenery, from drawings prepared by Mr. James Hamilton, our 
eminent artist, who is so widely known by his marine pieces, 
and who can produce more apparent motion and commotion 
on canvas than any one living, we believe. 

''These views are of the most impressive description, 
especially one of the lunar volcano, Copernicus, and its 
vicinity, as seen by earth light, of which the accompanying 
Plate facing page 49 is a copy. 

''The direct lunar photographs, by Mr. Rutherford, were 
also most effective. Thus we beheld, to our great delight, a 
moon, round and full-orbed, as bright as the original lumi- 
nary, but rolling on to the screen as a globe of 3s feet 
in diameter, her mountains and volcanic cones and extended 
plains distinctly visible. And this was not a mere picture 
skillfully painted, but a veritable reflection of that orb — the 
moon's own face, photographed by powerful lenses and 
magnified by Mr. Rutherford, whose skill in this department 
is unrivalled. 

"The lecturer described and named the various plains 
and peaks and hilly ranges, as though he had just returned 
from an exploring expedition to these rocky mountain 



52 



ACADEMY LFXTURE ON ''SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT." 



regions. We had the Ocean of Tempests, and Seas of Show- 
ers, of Serenity, of Vapors, and of Clouds (still called seas, 
though now known to be arid land wastes), defined and 
designated, while the heights of the peaks and depths of 
valleys and volcanic craters were indicated as clearly as those 
of any earthly elevations or depressions accessible to the foot 
of the surveyor. 

''We felt no doubt, as we listened, that it was all as 
described, for the photographic fact was before us, and the 
methods of measurement were explained. 

"\t was a wonderful and solemn sight, and we acknowl- 
edge a debt of gratitude to photography, which we do not 
expect to pay in full for a long time. To photography, also, 
the planets are indebted for a personal introduction to the 
audience assembled on this occasion to receive them. The 
planet Mars appeared, not as a brilliant speck or point of 
light, but as a vast, round, silver shield, with the marks of 
seas and continents distinctly traced. Another photograph, 
taken an hour later, and lo! the aspect of the planet had 
altered. A great snow-storm had been sweeping over it. 
Its majestic mountains and plains had been draped in a wind- 
ing sheet of frozen rain, and the dark wastes had become 
white, and the deep seas alone retained their sombre hue. 
Think of a snow-storm in a distant planet, watched, and fol- 



X 




cc 






U 



SNOW-STORM IN MARS. 53 

lowed, and fixed on glass plates, and presented to an audi- 
ence, sitting comfortably in the opera house of the city of 
Philadelphia. 

''What is the magnetic telegraph compared to this as a 
means of communication? It can tell us what is happening 
in distant parts of our globe, but here is a messenger who 
comes to us and tells what is happening in the planet Mars, 
more than thirty-five millions of miles away. The storm 
signal is hoisted on the coast of England, and mariners know 
that a tempest is up and at work on the broad Atlantic, and 
may soon be looked for, howling along the chalk cliffs of the 
island, and thundering into its bays ; but the telescope, and 
the photographer with his baths and plates, here reveal how 
a tornado of sleet and snow is sweeping across the plains 
and oceans of the planet Mars." 




September 23d, 9:40. September 23d, 10:25. 



54 OTHER LECTURES. 

A number of these lectures were repeated in the Academy 
of Music in New York ^ and at the Peabody histitute in Balti- 
more t, at the Young Men's Christian Association in Washing- 
ton, at Providence, at New Haven (before the Yale Scientific 
Society), at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Stevens 
Institute J during its first years, when courses of evening 
lectures were delivered in its large lecture-room (afterwards 
converted into a workshop) and elsewhere. 

In the lecture at the Academy of Music in New York, 
February 3d, 187 1, was shown with remarkable effect, the 
experiment illustrated in the accompanying engraving. 

To produce this a large lantern box was employed hav- 
ing an opening in its front about 10 inches in diameter, from 
which extended a tube of corresponding dimensions carrying 
a lens of the same size and about two feet focal length. 

* Transactions of the American Institute, 
''The Eye and Vision," February 3, 1871, pp, 295-30S. 
"On Certain Phenomena of Fluorescence," March 29, 1871, pp. 910- 
922. 

" Nature and Sources of Light," November 23, 1871, pp. 121-132. 
f American Journal of Gas Lighting, January 2, January 16, February 
2, February 16, March 2, March 16, 187 1.' 

I Scientific American, 1872, Vol. 27, p. 403. 

1873, " 28, p. 275. 

" " 1873, '• 28, p. 291. 

'' '' 1873, " 28, p. 343. 

1875, " 32, p. 264. 




>■ 



z: 



o 



< 



to 



> 
1j 



OPTICAL PROJECTION OF SOLID OBJECTS. 55 

At the front of the box, inside and in one corner, was 
arranged a lime light of unusual power, which threw its rays 
toward the back of the box, brilliantly illuminating any object 
placed there. 

Of this object the lens threw an enlarged image on the 
screen. Thus the hand being held within the lantern box, 
its image was projected on the screen as shown in the engrav- 
ing, but no picture can give an idea of the effect of relief and 
reality which this experiment developed. The strong effect 
of light and shade, the minute detail of every crease in the 
skin, the natural color, and above all, the motion of the image 
as the hand opened and closed or made play with its fingers, 
produced an impression of reality, which, combined with the 
magnitude, made the shrinking attitude of the figure to the 
right in the engraving by no means imaginary ; on the con- 
trary, it would require some effort on the part of any one 
similarly placed to prevent an involuntary retreat from the 
clutch of the gigantic hand. 

Other objects were exhibited with like effect. Thus an 
apple, seemingly 20 feet in diameter, was shown, cut in two 
by a knife of proportionate magnitude held in monstrous 
hands, and its solidity proved by the exhibition of its sub- 
stantial interior. 

The works of a Titanic watch in full action, a lamp with 



56 LETTER FROM MASTER OF THE MINT. 

glass chimney and burning, but upside down by reason of 
the inverting of the lens, a glass into which wine was poured 
upwards from a bottle, for the same reason, constitute some 
of the illustrations used in this connection. 

The impression produced by these lectures upon those 
who heard them is well indicated by a letter which we have 
selected from a number of. others of similar tenor, received 
by Professor Morton at various times, and the extent to which 
they were known and appreciated at home and abroad is 
shown in the letters from Professor Tyndall and Dr. Holmes, 
which we also insert at this place. 



United States Mint, May 5th, 1865. 
My Dear Sir: 

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of saying a word 
about your lecture, at which 1 was present, with my three 
children. 

It was a superb treat and a complete success. The sub- 
ject was well handled and finely illustrated, and it must have 
been some reward for your pains to see such an audience 
before you. 

Such efforts as these will give a fresh impulse to science, 
where it is somewhat needed — among the mass of young 



LETTER FROM PROFESSOR TYNDALL. -57 

persons, whose education and refinement should addict them 
more to the acquisition of knowledge, and less to mere 
amusement. 

Truly yours, 

[Signed] Wm. E. Debois. 



To 
Professor Morton. 
Royal Institution of Great Britain, 13th Jan., 1870. 

My Dear Sir: I am most heartily obliged both to Mr. 
Dickson and yourself for the exceedingly interesting series of 
photographs which you have been good enough to send me. 

The marks of kindly feeling which 1 have received, 
as exhibited by invitations from the United States, have been 
particularly agreeable to me, and 1 propose some day, and 
that not a very distant one, paying your country a visit. 
Whether 1 shall lecture or not must for the present remain an 
open question. In connection with lecturing 1 fear two 
things ; one of these, strange to say, is your proverbial 
American hospitality; the other is that, however lucky I may 
be in striking, when well and strong, the keynote which suits 



58 LETTER FROM DR. O. W. HOLMES. 

the people here, 1 might not be equally successful among 
your people. They are accustomed to things on a very large 
scale, and 1, if 1 dealt in experiments, might not be able to 
come up to their desires in this respect. 1 have sometimes 
thought of preparing a few lectures that 1 might carry in my 
pocket, and thus quit experimenting altogether. 

1 see that as regards light you have already cut the 
ground away from me. 

Whatever the decision may be, I am truly grateful to 
you for your offer of co-operation. 

Yours faithfully, 

[Signed] John Tyndall. 



Boston, Dec. 6th, i868. 
My Dear Sir : 

1 have heard from Mr. Sellers, and have read in the Phila- 
delphia papers, of your most admirable lectures. 1 feel very 
much obliged to you for the attention you have just shown 
me in giving me the opportunity of learning further of your 
scientific labors. I have Mr. Rutherford's large photograph, 
and am delighted to get the engraving with the key to it 
which you send me. 1 have /ilso been reading your papers 



LETTER. FROM DR. O. W. HOLMES. 59 

about the moon with great interest. It is a subject of which 
I know little, but about which 1 am very curious. 1 wish 
you would do as much for the sun, which seems to be test- 
ing the sagacity of astronomers and physicists just now to a 
great extent. 

1 do not consider that 1 have any claim to be so kindly 
treated by my distant friends who have distinguished them- 
selves in branches of which 1 know so little. 1 can only fall 
back on my stereoscope, the history of which you will find 
in one of the next numbers of the Philadelphia Photographer. 
It is the simplest of simplifications, but it is running a curioLis 
career of success. As 1 gave it away without trying to make 
money out of it, 1 may perhaps be allowed a humble place 
among the benefactors of mankind — by the side of that 
famous personage who made two blades of grass grow where 
one grew before, and that other famous personage who found 
that a straw could tickle a man, and thus become an instru- 
ment of happiness. 

Thanking you once more very cordially for your kind 
attention, 1 am, my dear sir. 

Very truly yours, 
[Signed] O. W. Holmes. 



60 EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 

During the period (1867 to 1870) over which we have 
passed in our references to the Academy of Music Lectures, 
Professor Morton was, in 1867, made Editor of the Journal of 
the Franklin Institute, a publication of wide reputation and 
long standing, having been published by the Institute since 
1826, and containing numerous original papers and records of 
classical investigations on Engineering and Scientific subjects, 
but which had fallen behind in originality and interest. 

In taking charge of this Journal, Professor Morton in the 
first place secured many original papers, of general interest to 
its readers, from the leading Engineers of the country, and 
also wrote largely for it himself, preparing each month, under 
the heading 'Mtems," abstracts of the novelties in Science 
and the Mechanic Arts which were to be gleaned from publi- 
cations or reached by direct intercourse or correspondence 
with those actively engaged in such work. 

In 1868 Professor Morton was offered and accepted the 
Chair of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, during the year of '' leave-of-absence" granted to 
Professor John P. Eraser, and after the return of Professor 
Eraser, in 1869, the Trustees of the University divided the 
work of the department and created a new Chair of Chemis- 
try, which was offered to Professor Morton and accepted by 
him. 



BCLIPSE EXPEDITION. 61 

These were years of very varied and pressing scientific 
activity, including in the year 1869 the organization and con- 
duct of an expedition, under the auspices of the U. S. Nautical 
Almanac Office, to make photographs of the Total Eclipse of 
the Sun, as observed on the 7th of August in the State of 
Iowa. Among the observers of his party were Professors 
A. M. Mayer, E. C. Pickering and Chas. P. Himes, and the 
optician, Mr. J. Zentmayer. 

In connection with these eclipse observations Professor 
Morton was the first to prove the true nature of the bright 

LINE ON THE SUN'S DISK ADJACENT TO THE EDGE OF THE MOON, 

SEEN IN PARTIAL PHASE ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHS. A Communica- 
tion on this subject, presented to the French Academy, will 
be found in the Comptes Rendus for 1869, Vol. 69, p. 1234, 
and a resume of the same in Les Mondes, Vol. 21, p. 747, and 
also in the ''Report on the Photographic Observations of 
THE Total Eclipse of the Sun, Aug. 7th, 1869. Supplement 
to the Amer. Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, Published 
by the authority of the Secretary of the Navy." Some 
account will also be found in the Journal of the Franklin Insti- 
tute, Vol. 58, p. 373, and in the Chemical News (London), 
Vol. 20, p. 313. 

This matter possesses especial interest because it was a 
case in which the young scientist was able, by a simple 



62 CAUSE OF BRIGHT LINE. 

experiment, to correct an error into which had fallen some of 
the most eminent men of the time. 

The phenomenon in question consists in the presence of 
a bright line across the disk of the sun, where it is intersected 
by the edge of the moon, in photographs of the partial phases 
of an eclipse. The accompanying reproduction from one of 
the plates in the report published by the Nautical Almanac 
Office of the U. S. will show exactly what this is. 

A similar phenomenon was noticed by Professor Stephen 
Alexander in 1831 and in i860, and also by Warren De la Rue 
in his photographs of the latter date. 

It was ascribed by Professor Challis, of Cambridge, Eng- 
land, and by Professor Alexander, of Princeton, U. S., to a 
very rare lunar atmosphere. De la Rue and the Astronomer 
Royal of England (Professor Airy) had explained it as a 
SUBJECTIVE EFFECT uot really existing in the picture, but devel- 
oped to the eye by contrast. 

President P. A. P. Barnard, of Columbia College, 
explained this phenomenon as the result of diffraction, and 
experiments were made at the Army Medical Museum, 
Washington, which seemed to support this theory. 

President Morton, however, showed by experiments 
absolutely conclusive, that this was simply the result of a 
local re-development, and was, therefore, a photographic phe- 



Plate XI. 




Solar Eclipse. August 7, i86q. 



LETTER FROM ASTRONOMER ROYAL. 63 

nomenon, and not an optical one, going on entirely in the 
dark room of the photographer during the '' development '' of 
the negative. 

The estimation of the work done in connection with this 
eclipse expedition, by the highest scientific authorities of 
Europe, is shown by the following letters. Two letters from 
Professor Airy, the Astronomer Royal of England, are given 
because they show in an interesting manner how he was con- 
vinced of the accuracy of Professor Morton's explanation about 
the bright line, after reading his paper on the subject, although 
he doubted it when first announced : 

Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 
London, S. E., Oct. 6th, 1869. 

Professor Henry Morton : 

Sir : 1 have to thank you for your valuable and most 
acceptable present of three photographs of the solar eclipse 
of 1869, August 9. They are excellent ! 1 have them framed 
and glazed, and they will be suspended in one of the oftkial 
rooms of the Observ^atory for the gratification and instruction 
of astronomical visitors. And at the same time 1 have to 
thank you for the two pamphlets (Journal of the Franklin 
Institute, No. 525, and the Philadelphia Photographer No. 
69), which accompanied them. 



64 LETTER FROM ASTRONOMER ROYAL. 

There must be something unusually favorable to celestial 
photography in North America. 1 know not whether the air 
is more free from irregular currents, or the instruments firmer, 
or the manipulators more cool. We have no photograph of 
the moon like Dr. Rutherford's, and I think none of total 
eclipses as good as these. 

1 remark in page 209 of the Journal you allude to the 
apparent brightness around the dark moon. I would ask you 
to refer to the monthly notices of the Astronomical Society 
(if at hand), 1863, Nov. 13, page 13, etc., and (in the same 
volume), 1864, jLine 10, page 188, and to repeat the experi- 
ments mentioned there. You will find that the apparent 
bright band can be produced at pleasure, when there is no 
possibility of explaining it by any chemical action on the 
paper. I am, sir, 

Your faithful servant, 

[Signed] G. B. Airy. 



Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 
London, S. E., March 28, 1870. 

Professor Henry Morton : 

Dear Sir : 1 ought long ago to have acknowledged 
receipt through Mr. Crookes of the negative photographs of 
experimental eclipses tending to explain the luminous band 



LETTER FROM WARREN DE LA RUE. 65 

around the moon. And 1 have now driven my answer into a 
time when I have hardly a moment free. I think that you 
have made a most satisfactory and most convincing investiga- 
tion on that subject. You have certainly shown that a large 
part of the appearance, possibly the larger part, is due to the 
photo-chemical action which you have so clearly traced. 1 
find, also, that a part is due to the ocular cause which 1 
indicated. It is curious that they should have so co-operated 
as to induce some persons to look to a totally different 
origin. I am, dear sir. 

Yours very faithfully, 

[Signed] G.. B. Airy. 



The next letter is from Warren De la Rue, who may be 
regarded as the father of Astronomical Photography, and who 
conducted an expedition to Spain in i860, to make photo- 
graphs of the total solar eclipse which was visible on that 
occasion : 

The Observatory, ) 

Cranford, Middlesex, W., Jan. ist, 1870. \ 

My Dear Sir: 1 am ashamed of having run into a new 
year without having thanked you for the two series of beau- 
tiful photographs you so kindly sent me, and also for the 



66 LETTER FROM WARREN DE LA RUE. 

very courteous and tlattering letter which accompanied them. 
1 liave no valid excuse to offer for having so long delayed 
writing, and therefore throw myself on your kind indulgence 
to excuse me. 

When your letter of August 30th, '69, reached me, 1 had 
just returned, after an absence of a year, to my house and 
was much engaged in putting my observatory and other mat- 
ters into order. Time has run on so fast since then that 1 can 
scarcely realize the fact that about three months have elapsed 
since the glass positives came to hand. 

Permit me to congratulate you, and all the gentlemen 
connected with you, on the eminent success which has 
crowned your enterprise ; nothing could be more perfect than 
the sun pictures and the totality pictures ; they are extremely 
beautiful specimens of astronomical photography. 

1 notice in both series the same configurations of soft 
light, which is important as proving that a part, at least, of 
the corona belongs to the sun ; for in both series one can 
trace the covering and uncovering, respectively, of those por- 
tions which have a distinct though faint outline. 

I remark that the sun pictures and the partial phase 
pictures were taken with the object-glass stopped off to one 
and one-half inch diameter ; it would be important, with a 
view of obtaining data for observations of the transit of 



LETTER FROM WARREN DE LA RUE. 67 

Venus, to ascertain whether or not the whole six inches can 
be used with good definition by causing the instantaneous 
slide to flash across the axis with greater rapidity. As the 
telescopes and their photographic apparatus are still, no 
doubt, available, you would do good service if you could 
settle this point at an early date. Some of the observations 
will have to be made with the sun at a very low altitude, and 
all the aperture of the telescope will have undoubtedly to be 
employed in order to obtain photographic records. It would 
be very desirable to have a concerted plan and division of the 
work between the governments who propose to take part in 
obtaining photographic records of the transit of Venus in 
1874. Do you know whether your Government proposes to 
organize photographic expeditions ? 

To return to your photographs: With respect ''to the 
increase of light on the solar surface, where it is in contact 
with the edge of the moon," which, with some hesitation 
and a reservation, 1 ascribed, in my paper on the total solar 
eclipse of i860, to an effect of contrast of light and shade, 
Mr. Stone makes the following suggestion : 



i i 



Nov. IS, 1869. 



'' My Dear Sir : The following very simple explanation 
of the bright ring of light around the moon's edge in solar 



68 LETTER FROM WARREN DE LA RUE. 

eclipses appears to me satisfactory. Near the boundary of the 
shadow we have superimposed the light received on the 
moon's edge at a grazing angle and then scattered. This, 
added to the direct light, would give rise to a belt of greater 
intensity such as that shown in the photograph. 

[Signed] " E. J. Stone." 

There is a difficulty in accounting for the bright ring of 
light by attributing it to the effect of an atmosphere surround- 
ing the moon. 

1 had the pleasure of forwarding to you by book post, two 
early copies of Major Tennant's paper ; one for yourself and 
the other for Professor Coffin. I had been engaged for sev- 
eral months in superintending the engraving of the fac-similes 
of the totality pictures, and hoped to have been able to send 
you the paper earlier, but several impediments prevented my 
doing so. 

Now, 1 beg to tender you my very best thanks for your 
kindness in sending me the earliest prints of your eclipse 
expedition, and for the very handsome acknowledgment of 
my previous labors. I set the greatest store on your very 
courteous letter, and fully appreciate the noble sentiments 
which prompted you to acknowledge the value you ascribe 
to my labors in astronomical photography. 



THE GIFFARD INJECTOR. 69 

With kindest wishes for your happiness in this and many 
future years, I am, my dear sir, 

Yours most sincerely, 

[Signed] Warren De la Rue. 
To Professor Henry Morton. 



To the same period belong many other papers on optics 
and mechanics, including an account of the Zentmayer Lens,"^ 
Monochromatic Light,t the Giftard Injector and Ejector Con- 
denser, J and various reports to Les Mondes.§ 

Professor Morton's paper on the Giffard Injector was 
written at the request of the firm then controlling the manu- 
facture in this country of this invention, considered by many as 
a mechanical paradox, notably so by those who were unable 
to understand its mode of action. A Scotch mechanic of 
considerable practical skill, who was sent to Paris by his 
English employers to report on this instrument, brought 
home a clear account of its form and operation, but when 
asked to explain the philosophy of the propulsion of water by 

* Les Mondes, Vol. 15, p. 492. 

t Ibid., Vol. 17, p. 133. 

I Journal, Franklin Institute, Vol. 56, pp. 54, 124, 194 ; Vol. 38, p. 291. 

§ Vol. 21, pp. 72, 205, 228, 593. 



70 THE GIFFARU INJECTOR. 

a steam jet into a boiler of greater pressure than the one that 
furnished the steam, answered the question as to what makes 
it work by the positive assertion, ''The will o' God, mon, 
the will o^ God." 

Now, the "will o' God," as manifested in this and in 
many other remarkable discoveries, found in Professor 
Morton an exponent who. could make clear to the most 
ignorant the laws that not only govern the Universe, but also 
govern such minor applications of these laws as constitute 
the remarkable inventions that from time to time, in rapid 
succession, are brought to public notice. Before we become 
accustomed to the discoveries that we cannot understand and 
cease to wonder at them on account of our familiarity with 
them, there is needed somebody who is capable of making 
clear to the unscientific the principles that govern them ; and 
in this regard few have equalled Professor Morton in his 
method and in his diction. 

We have seen how Professor Morton's first vocation to 
scientific work was in connection with the movement to cast 
aside the time-worn traditional methods of scholastic training 
and to substitute in their place those new methods of class- 
. room and laboratory experiment and research which to-day 
have won for themselves universal acceptance. The Chair of 
Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania opened up for 



THE STEVENS INSTITUTE. 71 

him a stiu wider field of labor in this direction, and the teach- 
ing of the text books were enlivened and brought abreast of 
the passing hour by his reports of contemporary scientitk 
progress, published month by month in the columns of the 
Institute Journal. 

But the hour had now arrived when, by an unlooked for 
opportunity, he was enabled to prosecute this vital reform 
in the system of education on a far wider field than that pre- 
sented by the limited sphere of a college professorship, and 
at the same time to find scope for the exercise of that aptitude 
in the management of men and affairs which had been so 
successfully displayed in the resuscitation of the Franklin 
Institute and elsewhere. 

At the time referred to, the teaching of industrial and 
mechanic arts by the Franklin Institute and other institutions 
had nowhere attained the dignity, or led to the foundation, 
of a school professedly dedicated to the science and art of 
mechanical engineering, nor indeed was this department, 
aside from civil and mining engineering, recognized by a 
separate title or honored by an appropriate academic degree. 
By the munificence of Mr. Edwin A. Stevens, a great gift of 
land and money had been devoted to the endowment of an 
''Institution of learning," but the precise form which that 
institution should take had been wisely left to the discretion 



72 RESIGNATION FROM THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. 

of a Board of Trustees. Appointed by this Board in 1870 to 
the position of President of the Stevens histitute of Tech- 
nology, Professor Morton, with the cordial support of the 
Trustees, and with the counsel and advice of many eminent 
engineers, entered upon the task of making the Institute the 
first school whose exclusive business it was to teach Mechan- 
ical Engineering as a profession. 

At the stated meeting of the Franklin Institute, held June 
IS, 1870, Professor Morton tendered his resignation as Resi- 
dent Secretary, having accepted the Presidential Chair of the 
Stevens Institute. 

The late Mr. Robert Briggs, in moving the acceptance of 
this resignation, proposed a vote of thanks that to the mind 
of the then President of the Institute, presiding at that meet- 
ing, expressed in a few words the good work that had been 
accomplished by the retiring secretary. 

''The assiduity which he had shown in advancing its 
welfare, the skill and ability with which he had, step by 
step, awakened the members to an estimation of the utility 
of its purposes, the share he had taken in instructing the 
members in its meetings, the furtherance of the objects 
of the Institute in other cities and in foreign lands, had 
been the noteworthy characteristics of his direction. Besides 
these successes in administration, he had performed a yet 



MR. BRIGGS' RESOLUTION. 73 

more valuable service for the Institute, in the establish- 
ment of the present position of the Journal as the leading 
engineering paper of the United States. An institution like 
ours lives in its record, much if not most of its valuable 
additions to science are the results of study, and are not, 
except to special audiences, suited for oral communication. 
The practical man has already learned, that often what 
he wishes especially to know, has been studied and dis- 
cussed and is in print, and if his steps lead him into regions 
where he finds no footsteps, it is then his turn to lay out a 
route and to describe and point out the path for future trav- 
elers. The record of an institution like ours is worth far more 
than any popular meetings. Under the editorship of Pro- 
fessor Morton, the Journal has reached an excellence of 
original articles, which its warmest friends hardly expected it 
to attain." 

At the time when President Morton took charge of the 
Institute, he formulated such a provisional working plan for 
the conduct of the future school as the needs and knowledge 
of the hour suggested. This plan was purposely left flexible 
as to its details, and from that time to this present occasion 
friendly criticisms have been asked for, from Trustees and 
Faculty, from Alumnus and Student, from the engineering 
profession at large, at home and abroad, and the results of 



Xbmi 



74 ORGANIZING THE STEVENS INSTITUTE. 

those criticisms, after discussion and trial, have been incor- 
porated, where approved, in many departments of the histi- 
tute, with the result that the wisdom and sagacity evidenced 
in the beginning, stand vindicated in the light of the knowledge 
and results of to-day. While the Stevens Institute stood 
alone 20 years ago, there are now in this country a score 
of institutions where Mechanical Engineering is taught, but 
the Institute still holds its leading position ; while the original 
plan has been modified in many details, the changes have 
been those of evolution and development, not those of aban- 
donment or departure; while the infant institution of 1870 
was an experiment, of whose eventual success or failure no 
one could speak with confidence, the Stevens Institute of 
1891 is a strong youth who has just attained his manhood, 
and may look with a not unbecoming confidence to a long 
future of vigorous growth and usefulness. With all of this 
past, with as much of this bright future as his years and 
strength allow, President Morton is and will be identified ; 
the Institute is his magnum opus and will remain his enduring 
monument. 

But to write of this part of his life is largely to chronicle 
the history of the Institute, and that pleasant task must be 
left to other pens and places. It will be possible in this place 
merely to advert very briefly to the generous gifts President 



Plate XII. 




Portrait ot President Henry Morton, Ph. D. 
By A. D. Turner, from a photograph taken in 1881, 



PRESENTATION OF WORKSHOP. DR. RAYMOND'S ADDRESS. 75 

Morton has made, and which have enlarged the scope and 
usefulness of the Institute, and then it will be necessary, in 
the brief limits of the present memoir, to return to a consider- 
ation of his scientific labors. 

In 1880 he presented to the Trustees of the Institute a 
new workshop, fitted up with steam engines and machine 
tools, at a cost of over $10,000. 

On the occasion of the formal presentation of this 
workshop to the Trustees, May 14, 1881, Professor R. W. 
Raymond, M. E., in the course of an address, said as fol- 
lows : 

''Various modifications of this combination of theory and 
practice, including more or less of the Russian system of 
instruction in shop work, have been tried in different schools 
of engineering, but never under so favorable conditions as the 
present. With characteristic caution and good judgment, 
President Morton has studied the operation of the scheme of 
instruction adopted in the Stevens Institute, and, noting its 
deficiencies, has now supplied them with munificent liber- 
ality, giving to it a completeness that leaves seemingly 
nothing that could be improved upon, even in a prayer or a 
dream. Still, no one will be more ready to admit than he 
who has done all this, that it is not enough to tit up a 
machine shop, be it never so complete, and light it with an 



76 ADDRESS OF HORATIO ALLEN, M. E. 

electric lamp. The decision as to its efficiency must come 
from the students that are so fortunate as to be admitted to 
it. If such young men, earnest, enthusiastic, with every 
incentive to exertion and every advantage for improvement, 
here, where they can feel the throbbing of the great heart of 
enterprise, within sight of bridges upon which their services 
will be needed, within hearing of the whistles of a score of 
railroads and the bells of countless manufactories which 
will want them ; if such as these, trained under such in- 
structors and amid such surroundings, prove to be not fitted 
for the positions waiting for them to fill, it will have been 
definitely demonstrated that the perfect scheme is yet un- 
known." 

On the same occasion, Horatio Allen, M. E., said, in the 
course of his remarks, as follows : 

" 1 was once appealed to by a rich man for advice as to 
the shop to which to send his son, who had a great desire to 
be a mechanical engineer. My advice was, that as money 
was not the consideration, he should not send him to any 
shop, but that he should provide, by purchase or hiring, the 
command of tools, machines and power, to be used under 
experienced guidance, and thereby attain the knowledge as 
to tools, machines and power, that was to form a part of his 
education as a mechanical engineer, and, at the same time, to 



ADDRESS OF COLEMAN SELLERS, E. D. 77 

give, under experienced guidance, such attention to what is 
to be learned from books and the drawing-board and its 
instruments as is specially required in his future life as a 
mechanical engineer. 

''The personal knowledge as to tools, machines and 
power, that is provided for by the presentation of this even- 
ing, is to supplement the knowledge from books provided by 
the Institute. 

" But, like all other means, its value will depend greatly 
on the will and attention of the student, and in no small 
degree on the good judgment by which the use of the means 
provided is guided." 

On the same occasion Coleman Sellers, E. D., in the 
course of his address, after alluding to President Morton's 
previous experience and views as to the needs of technical 
education, said as follows: 

''There is one direction in which 1 have always found 
him particularly strong, and that is in his caution in conduct- 
ing experiments and in his careful selection of methods. He 
has always looked upon this scheme of educating mechanics 
as one that must be tried in such a way as to make each step 
in the process of experimentation a step in advance. He tells 
you what he has had in view, and he calls on me to say 
what 1 think of the plan— a plan to carry out which he him- 



78 ADDRESS OF COLEMAN SELLERS, E. D. 

self has, with commendable liberality, furnished the where- 
withal. 

" Measured by his own pecuniary ability to make such a 
gift to the world as he now conveys to the keeping of the 
Trustees of the Stevens Institute, it is a truly munificent gift. 
Measured by the results that are likely to be attained by its 
use, it represents a still greater value. That such results will 
be reached, we have every reason to expect, for this is the 
outgrowth of what has been of use in a smaller scale, and it 
presents a possible elasticity that will make it bend to what 
is found to be of the most value, or what will .produce the 
best results as the experiment progresses. 

* * * ^ -Sf -5^ 

'' 1 have carefully considered all the problems involved 
in this scheme of teaching, and cannot but predict the hap- 
piest results. 

''President Morton's gift is not to the Stevens Institute 
alone — it is to the world ; and it behooves those who have 
the interest of the rising generation at heart to aid in all ways 
possible in the success of this enterprise. As one of the 
mechanics of America, 1 thank President Morton for his gift, 
rejoicing that another door has been opened for those who 
would add to our country's prosperity by aiding in the 



X 







THE NEW WORKSHOP. 



79 



increase of her production. For it is only to education 
well applied that we must look for continued progress in 
competition with the nations of the world." 

The experience of the ten years which have elapsed 
since the time of these addresses, has abundantly confirmed 
the most sanguine anticipations therein expressed and has 

dissipated every shadow of the doubt at that time entertained 
as to the practical success of the original experiment then 
inaugurated. 

The Plate facing this page shows the workshop substan- 
tially as it was at the 
time of its presenta- 
tion, with the excep- 
tion that the ''tool- 
room, " at first located 
in the gallery, or 
upper shop, as shown 
in the adjacent cut, 
was moved down 
to the rear of the 
main floor. 

In 1883 the introduction of electricity into the domain of 
Mechanical Engineering, by reason of the remarkable discov- 
eries and applications of this remarkable form of energy, 




80 DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED ELECTRICITY. 

rendered it desirable that a new branch should be added to 
the Institute, for the purpose of giving the practical informa- 
tion on this subject which was becoming needful for the 
thoroughly equipped Mechanical Engineer. 

The very success of the institution in the direction of 
increase in the number of students instructed, and the 
enlargement of the field of instruction in practical directions, 
had, however, rather crippled than increased its financial 
resources. 

The higher technical education has never been a matter 
of financial profit, but has always been dependent upon 
private or public endowments for a large part of the means 
necessary to carry it on in an adequate manner, and the 
relatively modest endowment of the Institute had already 
been stretched to cover an amount of work far beyond its 
capacity, as measured by what had been elsewhere accom- 
plished in similar cases. 

Such being the case, it was fortunate that President 
Morton was again able to supply what was so much needed, 
by establishing the Department of Applied Electricity. . 

This he did by giving $2,500 for the purchase of elec- 
trical apparatus and machinery, and guaranteeing the 
salary of the professor who should take charge of this de- 
partment. 



CHAIR OF ENGINEERING PRACTICE ENDOWED. 81 

In recognition of this timely action, the Trustees estab- 
lished the Morton Scholarship. 

Plate XIV. shows interior of the Electrical Laboratory as 
it was arranged in 1888. 

In 1888 a Chair of Engineering Practice was established, 
in reference to which we here quote from the report of the 
Alumni Trustee, Mr. Alfred P. Trautwein, M. E., presented 
at the meeting of June 13, as follows : 

''It will be particularly gratifying to your body to learn 
how the expense necessary to sustain this Chair will be met. 
President Morton, with his open-handed and characteristic 
munificence, has placed at the disposal of the Trustees the 
sum of $10,000, as the first installment towards an endow- 
mient fund which shall sustain this Chair. In doing so, 
Dr. Morton has added one more to the many evidences which 
he has given us in the past — in his equipment of the workshop, 
his establishment of the Department of Applied Electricity, 
and in many other ways, which, with his characteristic 
modesty, he has never allowed to become known — of his 
deep regard for the advancement of the material interests of 
the Institute." 

In this connection it seems not inappropriate to quote 
trom the valedictory address delivered at the Commencement, 



82 VALEDICTORY OF BURTON P. HALL, M. E. 

on the following day, by Mr. Burton P. Hall, M. E., certain 
passages addressed to President Morton, as follows : 

"To your guidance and instruction we owe a fund of 
knowledge which has proved indeed a valuable contingent 
throughout our college career. And although we have been 
favored with your personal instruction during only one year 
of the course, and that the first, we still have never ceased to 
feel its influence. Nor have we failed to recognize and grate- 
fully appreciate the kindly interest, the lenient justice that 
you have ever exercised in our behalf. And those of us who 
may have been at times deserving of your admonition can 
truly say, and with a heartfelt gratitude, that while in 
potency it never has been lacking, it has been robbed of all 
unpleasantness by being graciously administered, thus pleas- 
antly eliminating that spirit of resentment that might be 
prompted to arise. 

'' The duties imposed by our curriculum, when faithfully 
performed, give little opportunity for social life, but by your 
encouragement and generous personal assistance, you have 
ever rendered it an easy privilege to partake of the enjoyment 
of what social life our leisure time would grant. 

"You have made us welcome at your home, and have 
entertained us with a free and open hospitality that we have 



FURTHER ENDOWMENT OF CHAIR OF ENGINEERING PRACTICE. 83 

ever gladly accepted, counting it a pleasure and a privilege to 
be recipients of a favor so cordially extended. 

''The social happenings which have marked our college 
life and which still remain as bright and happy reminiscences, 
owed much of their success to you. You encouraged 
us by your presence and ever stood in readiness to grant us 
aid. 

''In all the varied phases of our student life, we have 
shared that generous interest which you have ever bestowed 
upon our Alma Mater and her students. For the many 
benefits received as such, for the never-failing kindness and 
consideration given us, not only in the exercise of your 
official duties, but beyond the college walls as well, we 
return our deepest gratitude, and with many, many feelings 
of regret, we bid farewell." 

At the meeting of the Alumni Association, February 
15, 1892, President Morton, in connection with the subject 
of subscriptions for the new building, announced his inten- 
tion of soon placing in the hands of the Trustees the sum of 
$20,000 in five per cent, bonds for the further endowment of 
the Chair of Engineering Practice, the interest to be used for 
the new building until the cost of the same was paid. 

In 1878 the position on the United States Light House 
Board, vacated by the death of Professor Joseph Henry, was 



84 MEMBER OF LIGHT HOUSE BOARD. 

offered to President Morton in the terms of the following 
letter, and accepted by him : 

Treasury Department, May iid, 1878. 

Professor Henry Morton, President of the Stevens Institute 
of Technology, Hoboken, N. J. : 

Sir : I have the honor to inform you that the President 
has authorized me to tender to you the position of member 
of Light House Board, made vacant by the death of Professor 
Henry. 

The lav^ prescribes that two members of the Light House 
Board shall be ''civilians of high scientific attainments," and 
your acknowledged qualifications more than meet the legal 
requirement. 

Although no pecuniary compensation is attached to the 
position, it is one of considerable honor, and has a certain 
National conspicuity, while the duties cannot be considered 
arduous, and would not probably interfere with your functions 
as President of the Stevens Institute. These duties would 
require your attendance, not, however, invariably, nor unless 
upon special urgency, at the quarterly and annual meetings 
of the Board, all traveling expenses being, of course, reim- 
bursed ; and, at certain times, the conducting of scientific 
experiments, for which ample ficilities are provided at the 



LETTER OF SECRETARY OF TREASURY. 85 

laboratory on Staten Island. For the making of these experi- 
ments, which relate chiefly to illuminants and sound signals, 
your proficiency in general physical science and your well- 
known researches into the laws of light and the properties of 
oils, especially fit you. I hope, therefore, that you may be 
induced to accept the proffered position, and thus give to the 
Board services which, I assure you, will be no less prized 
than valuable. I have the honor to be. 

Very respectfully, 
[Signed] John Sherman, Secretary. 

President Morton was made Chairman of the Committee 
on Scientific Tests in the Board, and in this capacity con- 
ducted numerous tests on fog signals, illuminated buoys, fire 
extinguishers, electric lights, etc. 

At the opening of this sketch, we noticed the generous 
hospitality for which General Jacob Morton was distinguished, 
and, as an illustration of an hereditary trait, will here insert a 
paragraph from a report of a meeting of the American Insti- 
tute of Mining Engineers, which appeared in ''Engineering" 
(London, England), June 7, 1889 : 

''After this genesis" (alluding to a paper entitled "The 
Genesis of a Nail"), "there was naturally an 'exodus,' for 
the Institute had been invited to lunch at Dr. Morton's house. 



86 ARTICLE IN LONDON "ENGINEERING." 

The writer is ignorant of the number of scientific societies to 
which this pleasant and hospitable gentleman, President of 
the Stevens Institute, belongs, but, having the honor of 
belonging to three of them with him, he can testify that the 
President never misses the chance of a meeting in New York 
to invite them to his house, and, as they always enjoy it, the 
invitation is never declined. ' 

'' If the Doctor belongs to many societies, it must keep 
him in a constant state of reception. Still, he seems untiring, 
and if he has as good a time as his guests, it is to be hoped 
he will continue this delightful practice." 

Soon after his settlement in Hoboken, President Morton 
was called upon for advice and assistance as a scientific 
expert in connection with an important patent litigation, 
having reference to the use of carbolic acid in the manufacture 
of the canvas and rubber hose so extensively employed by 
the fire departments throughout the country. 

In this case a great deal depended upon a sample claim- 
ing to be a portion of the carbolic fluid with which some 
canvas had been treated many years before On examining 
this sample, President Morton was led to suspect its genuine- 
ness, and, after a thorough and extensive investigation, was 
enabled to prove that such a material as constituted the 
sample could by no possibility have existed at the date 



EXPERT IN PATENT SUITS. 87 

claimed, but must have been produced by the admixture of 
materials some of which had only been manufactured 
recently. 

The investigation by which this result was arrived at 
required the devising of several new tests and the exami- 
nation of a large number of substances containing carbolic acid, 
obtained from all parts of the country. 

Soon after this, President Morton was called in another 
patent suit, which had already been in progress for several 
years, and which is famous among such litigations under the 
title of the Horsford vs. Hecker case. 

Here again President Morton's thorough experimental 
work and diligence in research developed remarkable results, 
which were sometimes almost dramatic. Thus, at a hearing 
on motion for injunction, the counsel for the other side 
appeared with about a dozen affidavits from chemists of wide 
reputation, all going to show the theoretic impossibility of a 
reaction which President Morton had cited from various early 
authorities. These were successfully met and overthrown 
by a single affidavit and some samples, prepared by President 
Morten, in and by which he first explained certain conditions, 
overlooked by the other affiants, which would radically 
modify the theoretical conclusions, and then showed, by the 
results of experiments, that the conditions did exist and did 



88 AS AN EXPERT IN PATENT SUITS. 

modify the reactions as they should, if the theoretical 
assumptions were corrected by taking these conditions into 
account. 

From this time on, President Morton has occupied the 
position of the leading scientific expert in New York and its 
vicinity, and the revenue derived from this class of pro- 
fessional work has enabled him to contribute to the growing 
needs of the Stevens Institute of Technology, not only by the 
larger donations which we have elsewhere noticed, but by 
many others involving less amounts, but large in the aggre- 
gate, and of the greatest importance to the successful 
development of this Institution. 

His natural capacity and large experience as a lecturer 
and instructor have given him a power and clearness in 
instructing courts and juries, and his courage and coolness 
before an audience have their normal development in a col- 
lectedness and readiness under cross-examination, which are 
most valuable qualities in a witness of any sort. 

The thoroughness with which he masters the subject 
matter of his cases, as to both literary and experimental data, 
is also a subject of surprise to those who know of the vast 
amount of executive and other work which he transacts as 
President of the Institute, and as lecturer by choice, in the 
Department of Physics, to certain classes. 



AS AN EXPERT IN PATENT SUITS. 



One of the most prominent stenographers employed in 
the New York courts once said to the present writer : 

''We have less trouble in taking down President Mor- 
ton's testimony than with that of any other witness ; he 
always says what he means, and sees his way ahead so f:ir 
that if there are ambiguities or forms of expression likely to 
lead to confusion in the questions put to him by the lawyers 
on either side, he always straightens them out in the first 
instance, and so avoids endless confusions and the waste of 
time that often arises from a lack of clear statement. He 
loses no time in making his answers, and thus, without 
hurry, gets through a vast amount of work in a day." 

His printed testimony in these cases, if collected in a 
separate form, would equal in volume a set of Scott's novels, 
and much of it is very interesting reading to any one con- 
versant with the subjects involved, and occasionally, as a 
specimen of witty dialogue, has proved entertaining to a 
general reader. It is often like a Socratic dialogue, only that 
the answerer, rather than the questioner, generally proves his 
point. It is full of passages which are models of clear, 
concise and expressive diction. 



90 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES. 

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES. 

During the early years of the Institute, when the classes 
were small and executive business was light, President Mor- 
ton devoted his available time to a series of original researches, 
which developed results of considerable scientific interest. 

The results of these researches were published in several 
scientific journals in this country, and were reprinted or trans- 
lated and republished in many foreign journals : the principal 
of these being the ''London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philo- 
sophical Magazine," the London ''Chemical News," the 
''Moniteur Scientifique," of Paris, and the "Annalen der 
Physik und Chemie," of Leipsi^ 

We will give a brief abstract of the subject matter of some 
of these. 

The most extensive and important of these researches 
was that on the "Fluorescent and Absorption Spectra of 
THE Uranium Salts."* 

The property of Fluorescence was first systematically 
studied by Professor Stokes, of Cambridge, England, and was 

* "Chemical News," London, 1873, Vol. 28, pp. 47, 113, 169, 2)}, 
244, 257, 268 ; Vol. 29, p. 17. 

" Moniteur Scientifique, " Paris, Vol. 16, pp. 24 to 34 and 30s to 318, 
and 318 to 320. 

''American Chemist," N. Y., Vol. 3, pp. 361 and 401, 1873 ; Vol 4, pp. 
I, 41, 81 and 125, 1874. 



Plate XV. 




Fluorescent Spectra ot the Uranium Salts. 



FLUORESCENCE OF THE URANIUM SALTS. 91 

shown by him to consist in a power, possessed by some sub- 
stances, of absorbing light rays of shorter wave length, and 
then emitting the same energy in the form of light rays of 
greater wave length. 

Thus a tluorescent substance placed in the path of the blue 
or violet rays constituting the upper portion of a "solar spec- 
trum " will shine, not with blue or violet light, but with light 
of a green, yellow, orange or red color, as the case may be. 

The effects which may be produced by this means are 
marvelously beautiful. Thus a vase or goblet of ''canary 
glass" (a substance fluorescing strongly) if held in a beam of 
violet light, will glow like a self-luminous vase or goblet of 
emerald. 

Nearly all the salts of the element Uranium possess this 
property in a remarkable degree, and what is more, the fluor- 
escent light which they emit consists of certain definite wave 
lengths, so that when seen through the spectroscope, it 
breaks up into banded spectra, equally characteristic and 
beautiful. 

The woodcut on the opposite page will give some idea 
of these spectra, if it is understood that the white spaces be- 
low the scales indicate the location of the bands of light in 
the several spectra, and show their relative brightness by 
their vertical dimensions. 



92 FLUORESCENCE OF THE URANIUM SALTS. 

The color of these various bands may be fixed by remem- 
bering that the part of the scales from 3 to 4 indicates the red 
part of the spectrum, above 4 orange, changing to yellow at 
5, blending into green at or about 7, blue about 9, and violet 
above 1 1. 

The Uranium Salts whose spectra are shown in this 
woodcut are:- 1, Nitrate; 2, Acetate; 3, Sodio-acetate ; 4, 
Oxychlorides (acid) ; 5, Potassio-oxychloride ; 6, Oxyfluoride ; 
7, Bario-oxyfluoride ; 8, Phosphate (mixed hydrates) ; 9, Cal- 
cio-phosphate ; 10, Ammonio-sulphate. 

The fluorescent spectra of a few of the Uranium Salts 
had been examined and recorded by Professor Stokes and by 
Edward Becquerell, but President Morton prepared and ex- 
amined over 80 of them, many of which he made for the first 
time, and by the extent of the work in this regard, was able 
to arrive at some interesting generalizations. 

Thus, for example, there are a great many double-salts 
in which there is a combination of one acid with two bases, 
one of which is Uranium, and the other some other element 
such as sodium, potassium, calcium, etc. 

When this occurs it is found that the entire series of 
salts shows spectra alike in the character and arrangement of 
their bands, except that, in the various spectra, all the bands 



FLUORESCENCE OF THE URANIUM SALTS, 



93 



are more or less displaced up or down in the spectrum in rela- 
tion to each other. 

If now a list is made of such a set of double-salts, in the 
order of the position of their bands, beginning with the sub- 
stance whose bands are highest in the spectrum, it will be 
found that this list is also in the order of the molecular 
weights of the salts, the lightest coming first and so on. 




Ammonio-uranic Sulphate. 



This result is very interesting when we consider that the 
Uranium part of the molecule is the source of the action, and 
that the other element is simply a load to be carried by the 
former, and, therefore, likely to lower its rates of vibration, 
just as weights attached to a series of tuning forks will lower 
their notes. 



94 FLUORESCENCE OF THE URANIUM SALTS. 

Again it was found that changes in composition and the 
formation of new compounds, could be watched and recog- 
nized by the observation of these spectra, where otherwise it 
would be impossible to do so. 

For example, if we examine the Ammonio-uranic sul- 
phate^ crystallized and dried at atmospheric temperature, we 
shall find its fluorescent spectrum to be such as is represented 
in I of the figure on the preceding page, which represents, 
in black and white, the appearance of certain fluorescent 
spectra as seen through the spectroscope. 

On heating this salt so as to expel some water, its spec- 
trum changes into that shown at 2 of the same figure, which 
will be easily recognized as a combination of the spectrum 
shown at i with a new spectrum or set of bright bands. 
Further heating and driving off of water caused the bands of 
the new spectrum to grow stronger and those of the first 
spectrum to fade, until a point was reached in which the new 
set of bands appeared alone, as is shown in ^ of the figure. 
When the salt so treated was then analyzed, it was found to 
contain no water at all, but to be an anhydrous ammonio- 
uranic sulphate. 

On now pushing the heat to a yet higher temperature, 
white fumes are given off, and another compound spectrum 
(4) results, which likewise gradually changes under continu- 



ABSORPTION BANDS OF URANIUM SALTS. 95 

ance of the treatment, until the spectrum becomes again 
simple, as in ^. On analyzing the salt when in this state, it 
was found to be a diuranic ammonio sulphate, which will 
bear heating to oso^ F. without further change. It is 
improbable that the existence of either of these salts would 
have been suspected, had they not been announced by the 
changes of spectra. 

In addition to their tluorescent^ spectra, these salts ol 
Uranium show characteristic absorption bands in the upper 
part of the spectrum. 

Some of these are indicated in Plate XV by shaded spaces 
at the right side of the plate. 

A study or these also developed many interesting re- 
sults. 

Thus it confirmed the observations as to influence in 
molecular weight in locating the bands of various double 
salts, already shown in the study of the fluorescent spectra. 

Again it showed that double-salts did not exist, as such, 
in solution, but only combined in the act of crystallizing. 

Numerous other points of interest were developed in this 
research which, however, we cannot attempt here to even 
enumerate without exceeding our prescribed limits. 

These were followed in the years 1872 and 1873 by 
another series of investigations which was published in a 



96 



SPECTRA OF PYRENE. CHRYSEME. ETC. 



number of papers whose combined titles would be expressed 
as Researches on the fluorescent relations of Anthracene, 
Pyrene, Chrysene and a new solid hydro-carbon (to which 

THE name ThALLENE WAS GIVEN) FOUND IN CERTAIN PETROLEUM 
DISTILLATES.* 

These bodies were studied by the same general means 
pursued with the Uranium 
salts and also by others first 
suggested by Professor 
Stokes, such as the projec- 
tion of a solar spectrum on 
the side of a tank filled with 
a solution of the substance 
to be examined. The side of 
the tank is made from a plate 
of ''quartz/' as this sub- 
stance, unlike glass, does not 

absorb the ''extra-violet" rays. chrysene in Benzole. 




E V F 



LONSACRE-CO 



"^ " Chemical News," Vol. 26, pp. 199., 272; 1872, 
' Chemical News," Vol. 34, p. 188; 1876. 

' Moniteur Scientifique," Vol. 15, pp. 353 to 356 and 3^6 to 361 ; 1873. 
' Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie,"' Vol. 148, p. 292 ; 1872. 
' Poggendorffs Annalender Physik und Chemie," Vol. iss, p. 579; 1874. 
'London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine," Vol. 46, p. 89; 1873. 
'American Chemist," Vol. 3, pp. 81 and 162; 1873. 



SPECTRA OF THALLENE. 



97 



When, for example, this experiment is made with a tank 
containing a solution of Chrysene in Benzole the appearance 
is as shown in the woodcut on opposite page. 

The light of the spectrum is here arrested and turned 
into a brilliant green fluorescence at certain parts, while at 
others it penetrates in long trails far into the solution, thus 
showing that certain par- 
ticular wave lengths or 
rates of vibration in the 
light are capable of trans- 
formation by this s u b - 
stance into light-waves of 
different length or fre- 
quency, while others are 
not. 

Thallene acts in the 
same way, except that in 

the case of its solutions Xhallene in Benzole. 

these effects are more sharply defined, as shown in the 
accompanying cut. 

This is due to the specially definite character of the 
fluorescent bands of the substances alluded to by Professor 
Stokes in his letter to President Morton, printed further on, 
and is likewise exhibited as a co-related action or result, 




98 



SPECTRA OF THALLENE. 



when the tliiorescent light coming from Thallene in its solid 
form or in solution is examined with the spectroscope, when 
four bright bands are manifest, as shown in the accompany- 
ing cut, in the upper band or spectrum marked i. 




Fluorescent Spectrum of Thallene (i) and of Petrolucene (2). 



When Thallene, in concentrated hot solution, is exposed 
to strong sunlight, as in the focus of a lens 15 to 18 inches in 
diameter, for from 10 to 20 minutes, its condition is modified 
so that it yields a brilliant blue light by fluorescence, and 
gives the spectrum shown at 2 of the woodcut above. 

The name Petrolucene has been given to this modifica- 
tion. 

When a screen covered with a thin layer or paint of Thal- 
lene is used to receive a solar spectrum, the blue and violet 
portions which, on a screen of paper, appear but faintly illum- 
inated, are seen to glow with vivid green light on which the 
Fraunhofer lines stand out with great distinctness ; and the 



SPECTRA OF THALLENE. 



99 



same is true with a spectrum produced by electric light 
This effect is made strikingly manifest if a screen is used half 
of whose width only, for its entire length, is covered with 
Thallene. Then we have the appearance shown in the ac- 
companying cut, S T being the part of the screen coated 
with Thallene, and R V the ordinary white surface. 



JO J2 






S\ 



Ji 



a. 



A^BC 



F I :f 



Among all these substances, Thallene possessed the 
property of Fluorescence (described in connection with the 
last mentioned research) in a pre-eminent degree. In fact, 
there is, perhaps, no body then or now known which equals 
or approaches it in this regard. In this connection an inci- 
dent of an amusing character may be recorded. 

This substance was discovered and extracted, in some 
quantity, by President Morton shortly before the arrival in 
this country of Professor John Tyndall, of the Royal Institu- 
tion, in 1872, when he delivered his memorable course of 
'' Lectures on Light " in our principal cities. 

He visited the Institute during his first stay in New 
York, and President Morton (knowing that the subject of 



100 FLUORESCENCE OF THALLENE. 

Fluorescence was touched upon in one of his lectures), pre- 
sented him with a large design painted with the new sub- 
stance, suggesting that he should try it, for his own satisfac- 
tion, on some occasion when he was rehearsing similar 
experiments. 

Soon after this, President Morton delivered a lecture on 
Fluorescence at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, and 
on that occasion used paintings (made with Thallene and one 
of its modifications) large enough to fill even that vast stage. 
These designs, representing flowers, wreaths of laurel and 
the like, when illuminated by ordinary gas light, are hardly 
or not at all visible, being attached to a ground of yellow 
muslin, matching their own tint ; when, however, they are 
illuminated with violet light (such, for example, as is obtained 
by passing the light of the electric arc through cobalt glass), 
the background seems like black velvet, on which the designs 
shine out with a blaze of grass-green and sky-blue color, that 
is positively startling. These things were shown with full 
effect at President Morton's lecture. 

Now, it happened that Professor Tyndall never thought 
about trying the design in Thallene, which President Morton 
had given him, until when, in the midst of one of his lectures 
in Philadelphia, he came to the illustration of Fluorescence, 
with such means as he had brought with him. 



PROF. TYNDALL'S SURPRISE. 101 

Some accident of association then brought this design to 
his mind, and, with the off-hand informality and ease of man- 
ner which was one of the many charms of his address, he said 
to his assistant, but equally for the benefit of his audience : 

''By the way, Mr. Cotterill, we have, somewhere, a 
fluorescent design which President Morton gave us — some 
new substance he has discovered. If it is at hand, hold it up 
in the beam of violet light, and we v/ill see how it looks." 

Mr. Cotterill promptly found the design and held it up 
in the violet light, when it blazed out with its peculiar 
brilliancy and so startled the lecturer that he exclaimed : 

'' Good Heavens ! 1 never saw anything like that in my 
life!" 

The effect of this exclamation upon the audience, most of 
whom knew President Morton personally and had attended 
his lecture a week or so before, can be better imagined than 
described. 

The value given to these researches by the highest 
authority on this subject — namely. Professor Stokes of Cam- 
bridge, who was the first to investigate and to name this 
phenomenon, is indicated by the accompanying letter, and 
one useful application, at least, of the new body Thallene 
is shown in the letter from Professor Holden of the Astro- 
nomical Observatory, Washington, D. C. 



102 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR STOKES. 

Observatory Armryh, Ireland, July 24, 1873. 

Dear Sir: 1 fear yoa must have thought me ungrateful 
for delaying so long to thank you for your very interesting 
present of Thallene and Petrolucene and the apparatus for 
showing easily their powerful fluorescence. It reached me 
at a time when 1 was busily engaged with a daily lecture 
besides other business, so that 1 had not time then to do 
more than try the experiment with your apparatus, and also 
by examination in ordinary daylight strained by transmission 
throLigh suitable absorbing media, such as a deep blue glass 
[by Cobalt], a deep violet glass [by Manganese], etc. This 
last is a very easy and, at the same time, effective mode of 
examination. 

The most interesting feature of the fluorescent light con- 
sisted in the circumstance that, on being examined by the 
prism, its spectrum exhibited, in the case of both substances, 
several maxima of intensity. 1 could have told from this 
alone that the spectrum of the transmitted light would present 
bands of absorption, as you have mentioned that it does [Phil. 
Mag., xliv., 34s]. With the exception of certain salts of 
sesqui-oxide of uranium, the fluorescent light of which 
exhibit bands much more definite than 1 have seen in the 
case of any other substance, Thallene and Petrolucene show 
this phenomenon the best or among the best. 



LETTER FROM PROFESSOR STOKES. 103 

1 delayed writing until 1 should have leisure to examine 
the substances by sunlight, by means of what 1 have called a 
linear spectrum [Philosophical Transactions for 1852]. This 
I have now done ; and naturally the maxima of intensity of 
the fluorescent light are shown even more distinctly. 

Should 1 find measurement of the positions of these 
maxima likely to lead to interesting results, I will write to 
you again to avail myself of your kind offer to let me have 
small quantities of the substance for dissolving. I am unwill- 
ing to spoil the drawing of the flower by cutting off portions 
to dissolve-out the twc substances. 

I have not yet been able to see your paper in the 
'' Chemical News," as the numbers were gone to the binder 
when 1 went to get it. Yours respectfully, 
To [Signed] G. G. Stokes. 

Professor H. Morton. 



U. S. Naval Observatory, Nov. 3d, 1874. 
To Professor Henry Morton, Hoboken, N. J.: 

My Dear Sir : 1 have been waiting until our experiment 
of lighting the verniers of our declination circle should have 
been thoroughly tried before letting you know of its success. 

1 think 1 can say now that the question is solved in two 
of the three important points : First, we can get a sufficiently 



104 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR HOLDEN. 

strong current where we wish to use it ; second, the Geissler 
tubes which you kindly furnished us, wiib the addition of 
the Thallene (and not without), give us light and to spare. 
The only remaining difficulty is one 1 had not anticipated. 1 
find that my tubes, which are fixed to the telescope, and, 
therefore, it would seem, insulated from any shocks, are 
liable to be jarred so as even to break them. One has 
already been broken in this way. Of course, this is a diffi- 
culty of a merely mechanical kind, and can easily be 
surmounted. 

So that finally we have to thank you for your most 
admirable application of fluorescence in making our original 
scheme possible. 

When you come to Washington this winter, 1 hope you 
will come to the Observatory in order that you may see the 
tubes in operation. 

With kind regard, 

Very sincerely yours, 
[Signed] Edward S. Holden. 



At the time of his lectures at the Academy of Music, in 
Philadelphia (between 1865 and 1871), and for many years 
after, President Morton gave much attention to the develop- 



IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR OPTICAL PROJECTION. 105 

ment of the Magic Lantern as a means of illustration. During 
his secretaryship at the Franklin Institute, a large lantern 
always stood in position in the meeting-room, so arranged 
that diagrams and pictures could be thrown on the screen at 
a moment^s notice, and this was constantly used during the 
meetings of the Institute ; in many cases taking the place of a 
blackboard, as it was not necessary to darken the room, 
owing to the power of the apparatus. 

During this period President Morton made many 
improvements in the structure and arrangements of the lan- 
tern, and devised a large number of adjuncts or appliances 
by which it could be adapted to the exhibition of new 
phenomena. , Indeed, for three years he conducted the entire 
business of manufacturing lanterns and other apparatus of 
this sort, which was originally carried on by Messrs. Hawkins 
& Wale, and was not in their hands successful, until he had 
placed it on a good footing, when he transferred it to Mr. 
Samuel Hawkridge, who has carried it on ever since. 

The various improvements and devices above referred to 
are described in a series of articles published in various jour- 
nals, as follows : 

Method of Producing an Artificial Rainbow on the 
Stage, ^'Journal of the Franklin Institute,*^ 180=^, Vol. 40, 
p. 138. 



106 



APPARATUS FOR OPTICAL PROJECTION. 



The Magic Lantern as a Means of Demonstration 
OR Lecture Illustration. A series of articles in the 
''Journal of the Franklin Institute" in 1867. 
• Vol. 53, pp. 55, 204,282, 354, 
406, 409. 

Vol.54, pp. 130, 206,278,339. 

Vol. 55, 1868, pp. 62, 206, 277, 

34.^^ 420. 

Vol. 59, 1870, p. 358. 

Vol. 61, 1 87 1, p. 300. 

Another series of articles on 
the same subject was published 
in the ''Scientific American," as 
follows: 1873, Vol. 29, pp. 163, 
184, 200; also in 1876, Vol. 
35, p. 328, On The Gas Micro- 
scope; also in 1875, Vol. 33, p. 344, On a Chromatrope 
FOR THE Lantern ; also in 1877, Vol. 36, p. 341, On the Pro- 
jection OF Colors of Soap Bubble Films on the Screen. 

An article on the same general subject was also published 
in the " London Qiiarterly journal of Science," under the 
heading: The Vertical Lantern, in Vol. i, p. 396, 1872. 
There was also an article in the same journal, entitled. Lec- 
ture Illustrations OF Solar Phenomena, Vol. 3, p. 547, 1873. 




The College Lantern. 



ARTIFICIAL ECLIPSE. 



107 



Two of these illustrations are also described in a lecture 
reported in the "Scientific American/' for May 3, 1873, Vol. 
28, p. 275, and are specially worthy of note. 

The first is to illustrate the formation of the clouds of 
incandescent gas (chiefly hydrogen) which are from time to 
time projected into the solar atmosphere, and which consti- 
tute the '' solar flames " or '' solar prominences." 

It is arranged as follows : A glass tank is formed by tak- 
ing two pieces of plate glass and clamping them on opposite 

sides of a strip of thick sheet- 
rubber bent into a U form, as 
shown in the accompanying 
cut. Before this is done, 
however, a coil of platinum 
wire is set in the strip ot 
rubber — its ends being con- 
nected with thick copper wires terminating with binding 
screws as indicated. 

Then all being put together, we have such an arrange- 
ment as is shown in the cut. 

To use this, the little tank is nearly filled with water, and 
then a red solution, made by steeping some cochineal insects in 
water, is carefully introduced with a pipette so as to make a 
layer at the bottom of the tank just covering the platinum coil. 




108 ARTIFICIAI. ECLIPSE. 

The whole apparatus being then placed in the lantern, an 
image is thrown on the screen, of a red layer, representing the 
solar chromosphere, and a clear colorless area representing the 
solar atmosphere. Then, when the ''solar tlame " is to be 
produced, the circuit of a small battery is sent through the 
platinum coil. This heats it and causes an uprush of the red 
solution in a cloud-like jet, exactly resembling in shape and 
movement many of the ''solar flames." 

By breaking and renewing the current in the coil, a 
great variety in the forms and movements of the crimson 
jets can be produced, and as these are all projected, of a 
vast size, on the screen, the effect is very impressive. 

The other illustration was on a smaller scale, as no means 
of optical enlargement were used, but showed the solar 
flames of their actual color, and indeed 
produced them by employing the very 
same material as existed in those seen 
around the sun. 

In this case, a large picture of a 
total solar eclipse was painted on a 
sheet of canvas-backed paper, as 
roughly indicated in the accompanying cut, the solar 
flames being represented by holes cut through the canvas 
paper. 




ARTIFICIAL ECLIPSE. 



109 




Close behind this perforated picture is placed a white 
surface to which are attached a number of '' spectrum tubes" 
containing hydrogen, connected by wires, as 
shown in the accompanying cut, so as to 
bring them behind the openings in the pic- 
ture. 

When the discharge from the induction 
coil is passed through these tubes, the brilliant crimson light 
seen in the solar prominences, which consist, likewise, of 
incandescent hydrogen, is produced, and, shining through the 
apertures of the picture, gives a very beautiful and true repro- 
duction of the appearance of a total solar eclipse. 

Also, in the Scientific American, articles under the head- 
ings. Luminous Fountain, Vol. 21, p. 231, and Erecting 
Inverted Image on the Screen, Vol. 21, p. 241. 

Again, in the London Chemical News, under the titles, 
The Vertical Lantern, Vol. 24, p. 92, and Action of 
Lenses, Vol 2=^, p. 2s i, and also under the title, Ein neues 
Chromatrop. Poggendorf's Annalen,\lo\. 1^7, p. 150.* 




* The chromatrope for the lantern, 
shown in the accompanying cut, with 
the various disks to be used with it, 
fully demonstrates the doctrine of 
color developed by Young and Helm- 
holtz. 



110 PAPER ON THE ISOMERIC PURPURINES. 

When, ill 1878, President Morton became a member of 
the Light House Board, as we have noticed at a previous page 
of this essay, he was made Chairman of the Committee on 
Scientific Tests, and in addition to preparing a number of 
Reports for the information of the Board only, he also made 
numerous experiments, and prepared in connection therewith 
Reports which were published in the Annual Reports of the 
U. S. Light House Department and elsewhere. Among these 
the more important were the investigations of the principal 
forms of dynamo-electric machines and electric lamps. ^'' 

In 1879 appeared a paper entitled ''Notes on the chro- 
nology OF THE ISOMERIC PURPURINES AND THE ACTUAL RELATIONS 
OF THE BODIES WHICH HAVE BEEN CALLED AnTHRAPURPURIN, 
ISOPURPURIN AND FlAVOPURPURIN. " f 

This paper makes very brief reference to a research which 
occupied more than a year and would have given its author 
the credit of discovering the body called Flavopurpurin, 

*'' Annual Report ^f the U. S. Light House Board for 187c)," pp.88 
to 136. 

''Annual Report of the U. S. Light House Board for 1880," pp. 90 
to 102. 

"Van Nostrand's Engineering Journal," Vol. 22, pp. 397 to 41Q, and 
pp. 441 to 4S0. 

t "Chemical News," Vol. ^9, p, 235. 

" Moniteur Scientifique, " Vol. 21, p, 872. 

"Journal of the Am. Chemical Society," Vol. i, p. 186. 



LETTER FROM WM. H. PERKIN, F. R. S. Ill 

which he was the first to isolate and recognize, but that he 
was led by a liberal interpretation of Auerbach's description 
of the material which he called Isopurpurin, to give him the 
credit of discovering the new body until too late to claim it. 

This research, however, cleared up an almost hopeless 
confusion which had arisen in reference to the names above 
given, in consequence of the fact that each investigator had 
worked on the material which he was treating in his own 
way, without making himself familiar with the processes 
and products of the other workers. President Morton, by 
thoroughly acquainting himself, by practical operation, with 
ALL the methods and results, was able to show that Anthra- 
purpurin and Flavopurpurin were distinct individual sub- 
stances, while the Isopurpurin of Auerbach was only a 
mixture of the others. 

In connection with the above subject, the following 
letter from W. H. Perkin, F. R. S., the discoverer of Anthra- 
purpurin, and also of the first Aniline dye, will be of interest : 
The Chestnuts, Sudburg, Harrow, Sept. 2d, 1879. 

Dear Sir : 1 have to thank you for your letter of July 26, 
and should have answered it sooner, but have been much 
engaged lately. 

1 was not aware that Auerbach 's Isopurpurin was such an 
indefinite product as you find it to be. 1 quite thought that 



113 LETTER FROM WM. H. PERKIN, F. R. S. 

as Aiierbach had been so much engaged with the manu- 
facture of artificial Alizarin, he would have had a good 
knowledge of the coloring matters it contained, so far as they 
had been examined. He states in his book on Anthracene 
(translated by Crookes), that Anthrapurpurin, and Isopurpurin 
are identical. Graebe and Liebermann and others have also 
called Anthrapurpurin Isopurpurin ; in fact, the name Anthra- 
purpurin is not often used on the Continent, as I mentioned 
in my lectures; and, as I wished to dispose of an idea which 
has been held by some persons — viz., that Isopurpurin is an 
isomer of Anthrapurpurin, I stated, on the above grounds, that 
they were identical. Unfortunately, at the time 1 was writing 
my lectures, I was unable to get a copy of the " Moniteur 
Scientifique " for 1872 ; otherwise, I should undoubtedly have 
noticed the statements you kindly draw my attention to. 

I have to thank you for bringing forward, in your note 
published in the ''Chemical News," my remarks upon 
Anthrapurpurin in my paper of 1870. You have undoubtedly 
seen Auerbach's answer to your note. On this 1 think 1 need 
not comment. As there are some misprints in my lectures as 
published in the ''Journal of the Society of Arts,'' I have sent 
you one of my private copies of them. 1 remain, dear sir, 
To Yours truly. 

Professor H. Morton. [Signed] W. H. Perkin. 



MEASUREMENT OF INCANDESCENT ELECTRIC LAMPS. 113 

In the same year, 1879, ^appeared a paper entitled ''On 
The Elimination of Antimony from the Human System." * 

The research, of which this was the statement, was 
called out by a medico-legal trial, in which it became manifest 
that there were no reliable data known at that time as to the 
subject indicated. This lack President Morton supplied by 
experiments and results as indicated above. 

measurements of incandescent electric lamps. 

When, in 1880, the incandescent lamp of T. A. Edison 
first appeared in an efficient form, President Morton, with 
some difficulty, secured one of these horse-shoe lamps and 
made the first thorough investigation which was ever carried 
out of its electric constants or conditions and efficiency. This 
was first published in the ''Scientific American," April 17, 
1880, Vol. 42, p. 241, although it was published or reprinted 
in a great number of domestic and foreign journals, t 

In 1877 President Morton began a series of investigations 
on products and processes for producing what is popularly 



* ''Am. Journal of the Medical Sciences," Vol. 77, p. 89. 

"Proceedings Am. Chem. Soc," Vol. 2, p. 142. 

" Moniteur Scientifique," Vol. 21, p. 23^. 

f '•' London Chemical News," April 20, Vol. 41, p. igg. 

Van Nostrand's ''Journal of Engineering," Vol. 28, p. i. 

" London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine," 1880. Vol. 10. p. 21 



114 PAPERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 

known as water gas, which were continued, from time to 
time, during a series of years.'" Of these we may mention : 
"Water Gas of Harrisburg.'' ^\Am. Jr. of Gas Lighting," 

1877, Vol. 27, p. 179. 
"Taraffines in Water Gas.'' ''Chemical News," London, 

Vol. ;7, p. 187; " Moniteur Scientifique," 1878, Vol. 2, 

pp. 68S-8; "Am. Jr. of Gas Lighting," 1878, Vol. 28, 

p. 68. 
'' Toxical Effects of Carbonic Oxide in Commercial Water Gas." 

''Am. Jr. of Gas Lighting," 1878, Vol. 28, pp. 90-112; 

" Report of Commrs. of Health," Brooklyn, 1883, p. 172. 
''Water Gas from. Coal, its Calorific Energy, S-c." "Am. Jr. 

of Gas Lighting," 1880, Vol. 32, p. 99. 
''Some Recent Developments in Artificial Illumination.'' "Am. 

Jr. of Gas Lighting," i88q, Vol. 50, p. 139. 

President Morton has also contributed several articles to 
encyclopedias, such as those on ''Electricity " and on '' Flno- 
rescence,'' to "Johnson's American Encyclopedia"; on the 
''Storage of Electricity,'^ to " Harper's Monthly Magazine '^ ; on 
" Recent Trogress in Applied Science, ^^ to the "North American 
Review," and on "Electricity in Ligbting,'^ to "Scribner's 

* 1882, Vol. 66. p. 84, N. 391, for December. 
1879, Vol. — , p. S26, N. 290, for May. 
1889, Vol. 6, p. 176. 



GENERAL RANGE OF INFORMATION. 115 

Monthly Magazine." This last was afterwards published in 
book form, with papers on related subjects by other writers, 
under the title, ''Electricity in Daily Life." 

One of those delegated to collect the matter for these 
pages, closely intimate with President Morton for many 
years, can testify, from personal knowledge, as to the wide 
scope of his studies and versatility of his talent. Many men 
climb the side of Parnassus by a path leading them directly 
upwards, so that their field of view is always limited to the 
one direction towards which their gaze has been turned 
from the beginning. This symbolizes the growth of the 
specialist. 

The subject of this sketch, on the other hand, has rather 
marked out a path that tends spirally towards the top, with 
a constantly widening horizon stretching before him, now 
north, now south, now east, now west. Such a mind 
finds interest in all directions — interest in the smallest atom 
and in the cosmos. The slightest differences, which escape 
the moderately observant, are detected and their cause 
analyzed, while startling phenomena when at first presented, 
are recognized as resulting from well understood causes, and 
never considered as abnormal. 

Walking with Professor Morton up Broadway one 
autumn afternoon, with the prospect of interviewing the then 



116 GENERAL RANGE OF INFORMATION. 

notorious, but not yet exposed, Doctor Slade, we stopped to 
look into the window of the shop of a vender of magical 
apparatus. We entered, hoping to obtain some notes that 
might be of use in the coming "seance," and were shown, 
among other novelties, a new device, consisting of a pendent 
mirror, upon the polished surface of which the conjurer, 
standing at a distance, seemed to throw some marked coins, 
which successively became visible on the glass, one at a time, 
in a horizontal row, when, clapping his hands, the coins fell 
into a hat suspended below the glass. After seeing this, 
which was then a new illusion, as we regained the street. 
President Morton at once explained its modus operandi cor- 
rectly to the most minute detail, a striking instance of quick 
inventive capacity. 

The illusion, he said, might be easily accomplished by 
having in front of the mirror a plain sheet of plate glass, 
which touched the mirror at the bottom, but was held a little 
away from it at the top, forming a wedge-shaped space 
between the two glass surfaces. The coins, he thought, 
were f^istened in the upper part of the frame, and by electric 
magnets were made to drop one at a time, when they slid 
■between the glasses as far as they could go ; then the glasses 
were opened by a like electro-magnetic action, and the coins 
dropped into the hat suspended below. 



RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 117 

Such minds are seldom led into the error of explaining 
physical facts by assumed superhuman agency. Knowing, 
as does the write^, that, in the majority of cases, brilliant 
scientists are most easily deceived by such exhibitions, this 
little incident is recalled as a striking instance of the versatility 
of President Morton's talents. 

Wide, too, as has been his research into the physical 
laws which govern matter, and extended as has been his 
reading, yet clearly has he kept his mind free from those 
useless meditations that lead many men of ability, in their 
ardent seeking after truth, to lose all f:iith in the teaching of 
the church. Like Dr. Benjamin Franklin, at no moment has 
he been led to enter into discussions unsettling his own faith 
and the faith of others, and narrowing his existence to life in 
a mundane state only. 

On the contrary, he has been able to perceive that, while 
Science and Religion could no more support or refute eacn 
other directly, than could Geometry and Cheniistry, there 
was the exact harmony of general plan and analogy in process 
and result in the phenomena revealed by True Science and 
True Religion which we might expect in two such distinct 
but co-related parts of one great Cosmos of Mind and Matter. 

These views he has very clearly expressed in an 
article entitled "The True Relations of Physical Science to 



118 ARTISTIC CAPACITY. 

Religion," contained in the ''Stevens Indicator," 1888, Vol. 
5, p. is8. 

The taste for drawing which led President Morton, in his 
college days, to illuminate the Rosetta Stone Report, con- 
tinued to prove useful to him in his subsequent work. 

Thus he made numerous colored drawings of a large size 
to illustrate his class lectures at the Episcopal Academy and 
at the University of Pennsylvania, and constantly made small 
drawings for use in the magic lantern in connection with his 
''Secretary's Report on Novelties in jVlechanical and General 
Science " at the monthly meetings of the Franklin Institute. 
While editor of the "Institute Journal," he also made his 
pencil useful, and drew on stone a number of the illustrations 
which appeared from time to time in that publication. 

He also prepared many lantern illustrations for his 
Academy of Music Lectures, either by drawing them on glass 
plates or making pictures on paper which were afterwards 
reproduced, as transparencies for the lantern, by pho- 
tography. 

in this connection occurred an amusing incident, which 
we will here record. 

When Professor Richard Proctor, the author of so many 
popular books on astronomy, came to this country on his 
first lecturing tour, he found himself very inadequately sup- 



PROFESSOR PROCTOR'S LECTURE. 119 

plied with illustrations, in view of the auditoriums in which he 
was to appear, having only brought with him a number of 
charts about three feet square. President Morton, with his 
usual and hereditary hospitality, no sooner heard of this than 
he placed his extensive collection of illustrations and appa- 
ratus at the Professor's command, and even went, with his 
assistants and apparatus, on various occasions, and superin- 
tended the arrangement of all the experiments. 

It happened that Professor Proctor's lecture on the Moon 
was first delivered in the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and 
President Morton, being unable to attend, sent his assistants 
to see to the illustrations, and, with them, a letter to Professor 
Proctor, describing some of the pictures which were among 
thos€ to be used. 

In this letter President Morton, in reference to certain 
imaginary views of locations on the Moon, said, ''Numbers 
3, 4 and 5 are from paintings by Mr. James Hamilton, a 
distinguished marine painter, of Philadelphia, but No. 6 
(alluding to one of his own designs), as you will easily per- 
ceive, is by a very inferior artist." 

The next evening Professor Proctor repeated the same 
lecture in New York, and President Morton, with a number 
of his family and friends, occupied advanced seats among the 
audience. 



120 "THE INFERIOR ARTIST." 

When it came to the exhibition of the pictures, Professor 
Proctor, with his national velocity in apprehending an 
American joke, quoted literally from President Morton's 
letter, and, to the intense amusement of the latter and his 
friends, said, "The last three pictures are from paintings by 
Mr. James Hamilton, of Philadelphia, but that which 1 now 
show you (as 6 sailed in upon the screen) is, as you will 
easily perceive, by a very inferior artist." It may be imagined 
that President Morton's party found some difficulty in main- 
taining that gravity of deportment which their location 
demanded. 

Professor Proctor heard of the joke sometime afterwards, 
and in one of his lectures, delivered during a subsequent visit 
to New York, he related it to a highly appreciative audience, 
as appears from the report of this lecture in the ''New York 
Tribune," Extra No. \% p. 6, April 9, 1874, where he kindly 
says at the conclusion of the story, '' We shall have the pic- 
ture brought on the screen. 1 think there is much in it indi- 
cating great artistic skill, and not only so, but there is a clear 
recognition, on Professor Mortons part, of the way in which 
the craters must have appeared." 

Besides these useful applications of the pencil or brush, 
President Morton has found time to apply this artistic capacity 
to lighter uses in the illustration or illumination of various 



Plate XVI. 




From a Colored Design Painted by President Morton in 1866. 



• POETICAL WRITINGS. 121 

poetical productions, which he has, from time to time, pro- 
duced for the amusement or pleasure of his family or friends. 
We here give a reproduction, in black and white, of a 
brilliantly colored title page to an humorous poem entitled 
''The Damson Tart or True-Love," which he wrote and illu- 
minated throughout as a gift to a very dear friend. The 
style and substance of this literary effort may be inferred 
from its last verse or '' Moral," which reads as follows : 

Ye fair ones who peruse this tale, 

Take well this lesson to your hearts; 

Th' accomplishments of most avail 
Are culinary arts. 

In this connection it should be said that a notice of 
President Morton's work and character would be incomplete, 
which made no mention of a poetic and humorous vein 
which showed itself constantly in his written and spoken 
words, and, in a more condensed and concrete form, in his 
definitely poetical compositions, which, with few exceptions, 
have been unknown outside of the immediate circle of his 
intimate friends. 

We will here introduce a few short pieces as examples 
of what we consider to be the characteristics of his style. 



V2'2 



THE POETRY OF THE FUTURE. 

A SAMPLE FRAGMENT BEING A 

MADRIGAL 

Composed in strict accordance with the 
latest developments of Practical or Applied Science. 




INTRODUCTION. 

n the days when our grandmothers wore pantalets, 

And the world altogether was terribly young, 
When they danced, not the German, but stiff Minuets, 
And the classical sonnets were written and sung. 

in those early ages it did very well, 
One's mistress's eyes, cheeks and lips to compare 

To stars, lilies, roses and coral, and tell 

How like tend'ils of vine curled the coils of her hair. 

But how, thanks to Practical Science, we're much 
In advance of such obsolete, commonplace things. 

And therefore I write you a Madrigal, such 
As befits the new era development brings. 



123 



THE MADRIGAL. 

Tlie warmth of the affection that my fair one does inspire 

Is two thousand Centigrade degrees, I'm sure, or even higher; 

Such clear white hot devotion doth consume me night and day 

As would melt a furnace lining of the best Mount Savage clay. 

The force of sweet attraction that does emanate from her 

Can't be measured by the largest sort of dynamometer; 

And its limitless extension in directions ijianifold 

Is like the gravitation, which does suns and planets hold. 

Her hair the gloss and color has of bi-sulphide of tin, 

And the rosy hue which dyes her cheeks might be alizarin 

With alumina for mordant, which, through clay, suggests again 

Her pearly teeth diaphanous, like Berlin porcelain. 

To express her lips' ripe redness coral will by no means do. 

For in shade they fully equal Roussin's orange number two; 

With her blue eyes' depth of color no flower that grows can cope, 

But they're like the lines of Caesium, seen in the spectroscope. 

To express her general sweetness no fit emblem we'd compose, 

Though to sucrose we add dextrose laevulose and meletose; 

And, indeed, to give it measure we must much extend the scale 

Of the standard Saccharometer known as the Duboscq Soleil. 

Her intellectual brightness in extent surpasses quite 

A forty thousand candle-power Brush electric light; 

While, in mild and steady radiance, it casts a shade upon 

The incandescent horse-shoe lamp of T. A. Edison. 

But her manifold perfections, did I name them every one, 

Would take more lines than there are miles between us and the sun; 

So here I'll stop, nor of the rest make any further note, or 

I might get uncontrollable, like Mr. Keely's motor. 




A Word witli Wings. 



125 



A WORD WITH WINGS. 

To a lady with a slight, and in fact charming, impediment in her speech. 

When lovely Lucy talks to me, 

1 seem to see a door 
Through which a crowd of winged Loves 

Are issuing by the score. 

They tread upon each other's heels, 

With jostlings and with trips, 
But still they pour in merry throng 

Between the coral lips. 

Let others tell of that fair maid, 

That fairy-gifted girl, 
Who broke her speech with diamonds and 

At each word dropped a pearl. 

But 1 would give Golconda's mines 

And wealth of every sea, 
If Lucy would one little word 

IVith wings bestow on me. 



126 



A JUNE BIRTHDAY. 

JUNE 21, 1802. 

This month is the month of the royal rose, 

This queen of months for the queen of flowers; 

It brings her the softest breeze that blows. 
With the brightest sun and the freshest showers. 

And so the sweet roses stray everywhere, 
O'er hedges they clamber, on trellises creep; 

From terrace of lordliest gardens they stare, 
And into the cottager's window peep. 

They waylay our path through the woodland glade, 
They carpet our porch with their scattered bloom ; 

And ev'n where their daring steps are staid. 
They haunt us still with their winged perfume. 

But sweet June will go and her roses die. 
And leave us but memories of pleasures past; 

Ah, gentle; ah, beautiful June! say whv 

Do you bring me no flowers, no joys that last! 

But no! pray pardon me, lovely June! 

You have brought to me and Earth a flower. 
More bright than the brightest that glows at noon, 

That shall live and shall bloom in Eternity's bower. 

Then thanks, thou sweet June! Yes, a thousand times 
I thank thee and bless thy mostbountiful hand; 

Go! bear other roses to other climes ; 

Thou hast left me the flower of all the land. 




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127 



TO BETTY 

The dinner now is all arranged, 

But e'er we do divert 
Our thought to less important things, 

Let's settle on dessert. 

It should be something delicate, 
And warm and sweet and nice; 

Not indigestible like pies, 
Nor cold like water-ice. 

The " Charlotte-Russe " too common is. 

For all her high-toned airs, 
So are "meringues," "glace" or "cream," 

And " chocolate eclairs. " 

But ah ! " Brown betty "*is the thing; 

There apples, sugar, spice, 

With bread and butter blended are 
In ratios to entice. 

Such apples as made Adam fall, 

Sugar as sweet as Eve, 
Bread, crumb and crust, and cinnamon 

Could fancy more conceive } 

If then I have been good and true, 

And not at all a sinner, 
Oh ! let me for my great desert, 

Have "Betty" after dinner. 



* The name of a pudding made of apples, mixed with bread crumbs, butter, sugar and cinna- 
mon, and baked brown. 



128 



A DECEMBER BIRTHDAY. 

DECEMBER ii, i8o;. 

Chill winds are on the wing, 
Cold snow-clouds sail the air, 

Groaning the swaying branches swing — 
Sadness sits everywhere. 

Yes, short the rule of Day, 

Short and of feeble light; 
While Night holds lengthened sway — 

The star-crowned, sky-throned Night. 

But Day is of the earth, 

While Night is of the sky ; 
His light shows all below of worth, 

Hers all that's fair on high. 

What though the day be short, 

Brief are its labors, too ; 
While by those few hours' toil is bought 

Sweet rest the whole night through. 

Then hail! Though dark and sad. 

Thy omen holds high hope; 
Life's brief toil o'er, there's had 

Long rest beneath Heaven's cope. 

Work while day's brief hours fly, 

While yet for work is light; 
So shalt thou win for aye 

The heavenly rest of night. 



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12fl 



TO MISS NEWTON. 

''Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, 

God said, let Newton be, and all was light," 

So sang the poet of the sage whose name 

You bear, and bearing, emulate his fame ; 

For where you go, all nature's face is bright 

With beauty's radiance and with love's delight. 

He did the laws of that great force unfold 

Which in its grasp does suns and planets hold, 

But you exert a force more potent far 

Than that which guides the perishable star. 

For four attraction sways with sweet control 

The destinies of the immortal soul. 

He saw an apple drop and from its fall 

Deduced the weight of this terrestrial ball. 

But you can claim that apple us your own 

Which was by Ate' 'mid the banquet thrown. 

Marked "For the fairest" but assigned to one 

Who ne'r with you could bear comparison. 

Yes, beauty's, so called, Goddess must resign 

Her sceptre when her claims are matched with thine 

And yield the golden apple though its gain 

Cost such a ransom, on the Trojan plain. 



i:^0 



A SILVER WEDDING. 

AUGUST 20, 1887. 

Twenty-five years of halcyon * weather, 

O'er rippling waves and beneath skies of blue, 

Such has been our long life voyage together, 
Such is the life that I owe to you. 

Twenty-five years of devotion tender, 
Twenty-five years of unlimited love ; 

Could more than this be asked to render 
A life-time here, like the life above ? 

Twenty-five vears since that hour fateful, 

When, with trembling hand but heart so brave, 

Into my keeping, longing, grateful, 
Freelv yourself and your life you gave. 

Courage heroic and faith devoted. 

Risking its all on a single cast; 
Though it was all unseen, un-noted 

My heart reveres 'till it beats its last. 



■■• According to an old Greek fable, there was a bird called the Halcyon which built its nest on 
the SLirtace of the ocean, having knowledge when there would be a calm lasting long enough for 
it to hatch its brood. Hence the term " halcyon " lor enduring fair and calm weather. 



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131 



As I look bacK on the years departed, 

Shadows I see where there might have been sun, 
But, thanks to you, my true love, true-hearted, 

Quickly they drifted as cloud shadows run. 

Each astronomical text-book teaches 

There is a moon which, in twenty-eight days, 

Waxes and wanes, and presently reaches 
Its dark, or rather invisible, phase. 

But 1 know one that no such rules fetter ; 

Twenty-five vears it has waxed alone ; 
And after that, it now shines better 

Than when it first as our "' Honey-moon " shone. 

May 1 but hope these years beatific, 
, Overflowing with pleasure to me, 
Have been of joy but half as prolific. 
Half as abounding in pleasure to thee. 




182 



A GOLDEN WEDDING. 

DECEMBER 2, 1890. 

Golden light the sun is shedding, 
Ushering in this golden wedding, 
As he did on that bright day 
Fifty golden years away. 
Then, as now, the "golden flowers," 
Lingering after Summer's hours, 
The Chrysanthemums *, foretold 
Anniversary of gold. 
Golden love and golden truth 
To gold age from golden youth ; 
In the fire of Life thrice tried, 
Pure themselves, yet purified 
By the sorrows borne together. 
By the stress of stormy weather; 
This pure gold, outlasting Earth, 
Proves its own celestial birth. 
And shall shine with golden light. 
Star-like, in Heaven's dome of night. 



*The word " Chrysanthemum " comes directly from the Greek name of this flower, meaning 
" Golden Flower,'' from ;^/9y(j(>5, gold or golden, and avOfjiov, flower. 



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183 



BURIAL OF THE AMERICAN FLAG 

AT MEMPHIS, i860. 

With mocking mimicry of woe, 

With death march swelled by ribald shout, 
With each vile insult, and the show 

Of hatred, see the rabble rout 
Are bearing to a shameful grave 
The flag their fathers died to save. 

''Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," 

Jeering they huddle it from sight 
Dishonored, spit upon, they thrust 

The glorious emblem from the light. 
Whose folds, blown out by victory's breath. 
Once ev'n made fair the gates of death. 

Those trait'rous hearts, those villain hands! 

Did they, then, bury that fair flag } 
There, where the fresh raised hillock stands. 

Did they entomb a lifeless rag.^ 
No ! They but sowed a living grain. 
Which sown, shall bring forth fruit again. 

That noble banner cannot die, 

Gemmed with the stars of human hope, 
Tinged with the azure of the sky, 

■ The gleaming blue of Heaven's cope, 
Dyed red with blood by heroes given. 
Bleached by saints' tears and smiles of Heaven. 

There, where it lies, that living seed 

Shall not in darkness find decay; 
Its life a myriad lives shall breed, 

And thrust a fruitful crop to-day ; 
A host of banners there shall bloom. 
And float serene o'er treason s tomb. 



134 



ON THE DEATH OF A DEAR FRIEND. 

In the vast caravan which o'er the sand 

Of time, creeps onward toward the promised land 

Of human hope and happiness for each, 

Which yet how fev/ of all that host may reach. 

Out-worn, exhausted by the toilsome way 

Our brother fell, as 'twere but yesterday; 

He fell, to rise no more beneath the sky. 

But passed into the perfect life on high. 

Ah, gentle soul, so loving, kind and true, 

What blessedness was there in store for you. 

Hath he not said, who his own life hath given 

And died in agonv to win us Heaven, 

" Blessed and welcome to Eternal rest 

Are those through whom their fellow-men are blessed 

Who 've soothed with kindlv hand another's grief 

And found delight in ministering relief." 

That '' Even a cup of water given in love 

Might win perennial streams 'mid meadows 

fair, above." 
What hand so prompt as his for other's aid ? 
What heart so kind has readv hand obeyed ? 
No thought of self found harbor in that breast 
Always unbarred to welcome the distressed. 
The kindliest soul that e'er to man was given. 
With him departing, sought its native heaven. 
The blessings that commingled with our tears 
Amid Heaven's harmonies he surely hears; 



135 



And the fond love his goodness won him here 

Will find its wav to him even in that highest sphere. 

For hath it not been said bv him we trust 

Supremelv: of the good, the true, the just. 

That: " From their labors when at last they rest 

Their works do follow^ them, and thev are blessed." 

We mourn with bitter tears and heartfelt woe 

The loss we suffer missing him below. 

But for our grief is surely balm in this, 

He enters earlier into endless bliss: 

There bv the shining river's shade-cool shore 

He waits to welcome, having gone before. 




Fforfi Desig7i by Geo. H. McCord. 



136 




CHRISTMAS 



'I A /"HY does the earth no tribute flower, 
^ ^ No incense-bearing blossom bring, 

To celebrate the thrice-blessed hour 

Which brought to her Heaven's earth- 
born King ? 

Why do no roses wreathe her head ? 

Why do no lilies, gleaming white, 
With everv rainbow blossom wed, 

Weave odorous emblems ot delight ?^ 




Text rc-pri>Ued fro7n the Decoiiher iiionher of the Century Magazine, l&()0. 



137 





Those short-lived buds she dare 
not bring, 
For though they fit her fleeting 
years 
They are not meet to deck the 
Spring, 
The dawning Summer of the 
spheres. 

This birth-dav of Eternity 

Finds fitter wreath in deathless 
pine. 
The laurel and the hemlock tree. 
Bound with the ivy's coiling 
vine. 

That Prince of Heaven, that God 
earth-born. 
'Twas not for mortal joy He 
came, 
The holly with its cruel thorn 
Suits well the day that bears 
His name. 



138 



Prophetic of the thorn which crowned, 

(Fit token of its victory), 
That love unparalleled, profound, 

Compassionate 'mid ago,ny. 

And the white wrappings of the snow. 
Like swathings in the manger's gloom. 

And drifts that under thick boughs show 
Like grave-clothes in the empty tomb. 




DMirOF HENRf MORTON 

The Distinguished Career of the 
Head of Stevens Institute. 



He Gave to the Institution More Than 

$145,000 for Various Purposes — 

His Work as a Scientist. 



President Henry Morton of the Stevens 
Institute of Technology, and a scientist of 
world wide reputation, died at 10 o'clock 
last evening in the private hospital, 33 East 
Thirty-third Street, where he had under- 
gone an operation three weeks ago. He was 
the son of the Rev. Henry Jackson Morton, 
for half a century rector of St. James's 
Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadel- 
phia, and was born in this city, Dec. 1, 1836. 
. He was graduated from the University of 
Pennsj-^lvania in 1857, taking a post gradu- 
ate course in chemistry, and was studying 
law, when offered the position of instructor 
in chemistry and physics at the Protestant 
Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, which 
he accepted, and devoted the rest of his life 
to scientific attainment. He published a 
translation of the text of the Rosetta Stone 
in 1859, and in 18G3 was the head of an ex- 
pedition formed to observe and make pho- 
tographic records of a total eclipse of the 
sun in Iowa. 

In the same year he became Professor of 
Chemistry at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, and in 1870 became the first Presi- 
dent of Stevens Institute, which was then 
being formed in accordance with the will 
of Edwin A. Stevens. He selected the Fac- 
ulty, and during his tenure of office, which 
continued without Interruption to the time 
of his death, he gave the institution more 
than $145,000 for various purposes. 

He was for eight years a member of the 
United States Lighthouse Board and had 
been a member of the National Academy of 
Sciences since 1873. He married Miss Clara 
Whiting Dodge of this city In 18G3. Mrs. 
Morton died less than a year ago at their 
country home at Pine Hill, N. Y. Two 
sons survive them. 



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